Powerbook G4 Battery Issues

[Theretrogamingroom]

Well, my 17" Powerbook G4 battery doesn't seem to be working right. Sometimes, when I first boot up the machine after just being taken off of the charger, my laptop will barely have any more power left to do much of anything (I would give it about 5-10 minutes after that). However, if I already have it on, it can last for at least 30 minutes. Why does my Powerbook suck so much energy at boot? Also, when I have it off of the charger, my battery strength indicator will tell me that I still have 100, 99, 98, or 97% left. However, after it is on 97%, both Coconut Battery and the Apple Battery Strength Indicator will shoot down to 1 or even 0%, and the laptop will die soon afterwords. The battery has 422 charges on it, but it has been doing this since the late 200's. I am wondering why it goes down so low so quickly. Even my Lombard would go from 100 to 0 in increments of 1 (100, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95... 3, 2, 1, 0%), so why won't my G4?

Thanks

 

[Macdrone]

Sounds like the life of the battery is done. No matter how many cycles it has they can just go bad. The percentage is the computers best guess. It goes down fast because the drain is that fast on a aging battery.

 

[Byrd]

You could try recalibrating to reduce the 97% --> 1% thing, but as with Macdrone, that thing is done.