Battery exchange program

[cxc]

I received my exchange LI-ion battery to replace the one which came with my 1.67 Ghz PPC Powerbook.
The old one would give me 2.5 hours at lowest monitor brightness setting usually about enough to watch a dvd on the plane.
The new one is just good for 1.5 hours. Are the exchanged batteries lower capacity?

[cheerful]

i just don't want to assume. so my Q is, have you conditioned the battery? if not, have a look at these suggestions

1) Resetting PowerBook and iBook Power Management Unit (PMU)
2) Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
3) Updating battery firmware for PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) and some earlier PowerBooks
4) Calibrate Battery

I hope these suggestions can solve your low capacity issues. If the above doesn't help after 5 calibrations, I strongly suggest you call Apple.

By the way, these applications(by no means exhaustive) can help you track the capacity.
1) Coconut Battery
2) Xbattery

The other alternative is to check in ASP (under Power) for the details. However, you have to manually record the readings.

All the best!

[cxc]

Thank you for the excellent and helpful response. The battery update was installed sometime ago. I did the resets. 5 callibrations will take time. I willl look with the apps and see what I can find out.

With all the powerbooks I had so far I got only about 50% of the advertised battery life, much less when doing really work on them. And I tried everything. Apple reps only moved some hot air around and offered to take them in for a couple of weeks to check it out, which I never could effort. Since it was the same with three models (beginning with the original T4/500) I resigned myself to taking the 4-5 hours as advertising bull (Time runs faster for those guys). But under 1.5 hours is ridiculous. I hope that performance improves after a few load cycles, but I never saw more than a 10% increase with new batteries. I wonder if other can get the same performances as their original batteries with the upgrade batteries?

[cheerful]

My pleasure. Most importantly, get the issue(s) sovled.

Regards to the other batteries, I can't say others, but for my particular model --- TiPB 400 G4 --- the battery I purchased from fastmac.com(cheaper than newertech), gives me better mileage.

My original gave me at best 4 hrs (as far as I can remember, but I'm sure never beyond 4 hrs). That time, I didn't have wireless either.

The new one, though never exactly achieve the stated 4400 mha capacity as advertised (yes, I do feel a little cheated, but it is still way cheaper than other brands), I managed to get 6+ hrs on the new battery for the first 60 charges. Now I'm into the 90 charges, I'm getting no less than 5.5 hrs. DO note however, this is w/o wireless (i.e. airport or airport extreme) and of course on the 1 bar dimmer and running at 300 Mhz G4 (i think it should be a G4 300 at reduced CPU and not G3 300)

Ok, now for a more real-world kind of test, medium brightness, airport extreme (PCMCIA card, buffalo highpower card) running at reduced CPU. Mileage - @best 4.5 hrs (at the 90 charges mark)

If I run it at 400, I get 4+ hrs.

All these testing isn't exactly a completely controlled environment, but the time, I asssure you is correct. As for what apps I was using at that time.

Core application -> Audio Recording using QT Pro (speaking of which, this has a glaring bug since day one!)

Others inc. rooSwitch, Mail (checks every min), Safari, Omni 5.5 Beta, AdiumX, iChat, Address Book, TeamSpeeX, Activity Monitor (horizontal CPU gague) and TextEdit

do note, they are in no order of preferences, i just type them out as they come to mind and also, i check the DOCK for the spealling of those Apps haha. I sux at spelling.


p.s. the major reason why i didn't pick TiPB 500 G4 was the additional 1k USD premium. 2nd reason being i hope to do a self upgrade to 500 haha. basically, being a cheapskate ... ... but on hindsight, i think i should've taken the 500 Mhz.