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Battery taking forever to charge on PB

T

thomasp

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 18, 2004
654
1
UK
I have a 14 month-old PowerBook - 1.5GHz on its original battery, running OSX 10.4.5

I was using the computer today running off battery power until the "You are running low on battery" message came up. I put it to sleep at this point, but was forced to wait 10mins until I could actually plug it into the mains (I wasn't near my mains adapter at the time).

I charged it for about 45mins up to 50% (while using the computer) and then put it back to sleep, unplugged for 15mins or so, plugged it back in (had to move) and used it for a little while longer. Then, put it back to sleep and unplugged for probably another hour (charge was 45% at absolute minimum after this)

I've been using it for a couple of hours plugged in to the mains and it still isn't up to 85% charge. I've noticed the "time left till 100%" clock in the menubar has actually been increasing in time while its charging and it seems to be taking a lot longer than usual for the battery to increase in charge by 1%. As far as I'm aware, the computer is charging, as the orange light is on on the plug, the battery status icon in the menu shows the "charging" icon, and the lights are flashing on the battery itself.

One big cause for concern is that coconutBattery is claiming that the battery is neither charging not connected to the mains. Temperature monitor is reporting constant, normal temps for the battery and powersupply bottomside


What's going on here? I've tried rebooting but that doesn't help. Is my battery about to die?


I'm not doing anything "heavy" on my computer - just Safari, Word, adium, that type of thing
 
I haven't properly calibrated my battery for ages.

I put the computer to sleep shortly after posting this, and within about 20mins, the battery had charged right up to 100% charge.

Strange....


coconutBattery is still refusing to acknowledge the charger being plugged in. Even iStatNano is recognising it.

I'll run this down again later and see how it charges up.
 
FWIW, if the computer is needing a lot of power then charging the battery takes the back seat. Under heavy strain, it'll take the battery longer to charge. Having said that, I don't think this is your problem. Definitely reset your PMU and re-calibrate your battery. :)
 
mad jew said:
FWIW, if the computer is needing a lot of power then charging the battery takes the back seat. Under heavy strain, it'll take the battery longer to charge. Having said that, I don't think this is your problem. Definitely reset your PMU and re-calibrate your battery. :)
Click to expand...

Resetting the PMU shouldn't blow my computer up, or anything like that?

What you said above about the computer needing a lot of power does kind of fit in what I was saying - putting it to sleep making it charge, etc. I was doing quite a bit, but not "that much" on my computer at the time. The charging did also seem to "stall" at 84%...
 
Resetting your PMU will lose your clock's time but that should re-update as soon as you log back onto the 'net. As for the power issue, you're right that it does make a bit of sense but generally we're talking about a machine with a massive power load taking a marginally longer time to recharge its battery. I dunno. I'll be interested to see how this thing fares after the PMU reset and calibration. Hopefully it'll be fine. :)
 
mad jew said:
Resetting your PMU will lose your clock's time but that should re-update as soon as you log back onto the 'net. As for the power issue, you're right that it does make a bit of sense but generally we're talking about a machine with a massive power load taking a marginally longer time to recharge its battery. I dunno. I'll be interested to see how this thing fares after the PMU reset and calibration. Hopefully it'll be fine. :)
Click to expand...

I won't be doing the PMU reset until tomorrow evening. I need this laptop for a presentation tomorrow, and don't want to risk anything :D
 
mad jew said:
That's fair enough. It'll almost certainly be fine but don't take the risk, just in case. Good luck with the presentation. :)
Click to expand...

Cheers - thanks for the help :)
 
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