iBook battery reset => Back alive?

[didius]

I just love my iBook SE (366 Clamshell).

however, the battery seems to be completly dead.

The iBook was running OS X, so i installed Mac OS 9 to run the Battery Reset application.

Battery Reset appears to be doing something. The power connection glows orange (charging).

The battery does seem to gain charge however...

Starting up in Mac OS X and running coconutBattery gives the following results:

Current Battery Charge: 0 mAh

Maximum Battery Charge: 3200 mAh

Current Battery Capacity: 3200 mAh

Original Battery Capacity: -1 mAh

Is the battery completly dead? Or what is wrong with it? Should i let it charge on os 9; or doesn't that matter?

If it is dead i think i'll buy a new iBook battery, would this be a good buy?

http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/APPLE-Batterie-Ibook-M7426-M7621G-A-M6392-graphite-lime_W0QQitemZ170083274674QQihZ007QQcategoryZ25437QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[AusNick]

Folks,

I have the same problem as Didius, but different.

Couple of months ago, I rescued a 'dead' iBook (G3/300) at an AUSOM meeting, I was told by the person that gave it to me, that it was dead, this condition had been diagnosed by an alleged expert.

Okay, it'll fill a slot in the collection, got it home, straight out to the shed, parents never saw it.

The other night a mate comes around with a yoyo power supply to suit, as he knew I wanted one.

Powered the machine up, all was good, and has been ever since.

I even upgraded the RAM from it's base 64MB to 96MB, as I had a SO-DIMM floating around that would suit.

The battery seemed to be charging, I left it for a couple of hours.

Came back, booted the machine, saw that all but two bars in the battery control strip were lit, good enough thinks I, shuts the machine down. Unplugs, goes away with machine and fires it up.

Got a couple of minutes out of it. Which I figured would be enough for an emergency.

Plug it back in, and this time fire the machine up, machine starts charging, and I watch as the bars creep up in the control strip, then, suddenly, zonk, the control strip module changes from the unit charging, to being on the power addapter, and the icon in the menubar shows the battery having no charge.

Argh, PRAM issue thinks I and resets the PRAM.

Same thing.

Power manager issue thinks I and resets the power manager.

Same thing.

So today I go surfing, looking for solutions, I do what Apple says to do, which I had already done.

I try a reset in Open Firmware having read elsewhere that it cured the problem back in the day.

Didn't work.

Then I find my way to the Battery Reset Utility 2.0, download, boot into OS9 open the .smi and run the installer, reboot.

The I go looking for the Battery Reset application.

It's not where the read me said it would be, in fact, it's not anywhere.

The extention has been installed, but not the application.

If anyone has the Application, please PM me and send me the bugger, I'd mike to try every option before giving up in the battery.

Oh, and I've done something, either interesting or stupid. I partitioned the hard drive, one for OSX, one for OS9, the 9-side we have 9.2.2, on the X-side, Panther…in 96 megs of RAM. It's slow to boot and shut down, and run optimisation tasks, but it runs fine otherwise.

If someone can supply me with the required app, or a fix I haven't tried, I'd be grateful, otherwise the iBook is going back into it's bag and out into the shed.

TIA,

Nick

 

[tomlee59]

AFAIK, there is no reset app on the clamshell -- the one that I'm familiar with works with the earlier G3 powerbooks. On the clamshell, only an extension gets installed, and it's supposed to do the right thing automatically. At least, that's my recollection.

I've had some success on clamshell batteries by doing "CPR," but it's potentially dangerous.

 

[Christopher]

That battery reset actually is written for the clamshell as well. But thats the only iBook compatible.

 

[tomlee59]

That battery reset actually is written for the clamshell as well. But thats the only iBook compatible.

I have no idea what you're saying. The OP was talking about his clamshell, and so was I. So, I am confused by what you mean by "actually" and "as well."

I'll try again. AFAIK, there *is* a battery reset *extension* that works on the clamshell. BUT -- again AFAIK -- it works in the background on the clamshell -- there's no dialog box, no button to click on to force a reset. Are you saying that there is such a button to click? Or are you saying something else? I can't parse your sentences above.

 

[Christopher]

I thought you meant, that the Battery Reset was not written for the Clamshell. Excuse me while I go shoot myself.