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Defective Battery in Clamshell?

Scott Baret

Scott Baret

68LC040
I finally broke down and got a new battery for my clamshell, which has been AC-only for the past five years. The battery is a Newer Technology NuPower 63W model and arrived today.

My iBook runs OS 9.1, which I only mention because I rely on the control strip in OS 9 to check this battery. Also, I have a fully functional Apple 45W yo-yo (not the original one, but an identical one that I bought after mine shorted out).

Here's what happens...

1. The new battery will not charge. Period. It does appear to work, as it had a small amount of charge in it when I got it, which was enough to power the computer off the outlet for about 15 seconds before it went to sleep. The ring around the power adapter does not turn orange and stays green no matter what state the computer is in.

2. The icon in the control strip is that of a plug with no battery gauge next to it. During the 15 seconds it ran off the battery, the icon changed to a white battery with no gauge next to it.

3. The old battery, which hasn't held a charge in over five years, will activate the orange ring as soon as it is inserted. It won't charge, of course, as it's completely dead, but the gauge does appear in the control strip. There is no lightning bolt icon over the battery, probably because the battery can't charge (it's dead and has been for half a decade).

4. I already have reset the PMU, PRAM, and NVRAM. The new battery still refuses to charge.

I don't have another clamshell to test this battery in, nor do I have access to one.

I did try another power adapter--a non-Apple that I used for a few years after mine originally shorted out. (The shorted-out yo-yo is why I was unable to use this off the battery for a while--it left my battery completely empty for about a month, and the battery refused to charge after that).

My first guess is that the Newer battery is defective. Any other theories?

 
One theory might be that you need to reset the PMU. (Power-Management-Unit.)

Link to Apple's page on resetting on iBook.

I've read a lot of frustrated Mac owners online who've had defected batteries from NewerTech. Most of them dying after owning them for only a few months. Of course these were posts and mail-listings from a long time ago and may be irrelevant now.

If you bought it brand new you should definitely contact the seller/manufacture and see if you can get a new one.

 
I reset the PMU, actually tried this thrice. Also did zapping the PRAM (3x) twice and ran the NVRAM reset commands twice. Just for kicks I tried Apple's battery extension but that did nothing.

I did contact the seller and have arranged for a return and a new battery to be shipped. The battery was in fact brand new. I believe it came with a warranty of 1 year, although I may be confusing that with the cell phone battery I recently purchased.

My only other guess on this battery issue would be the charger component inside the computer itself. I'm having the seller, Other World Computing, rule that out by testing the battery in one of their machines. However, I'm tentatively ruling that out because the computer gives me the amber light as soon as I put the dead battery in, something which does not happen for the new battery. (I should restate there is no lightning bolt on the battery in the Control Strip, but I'm assuming it's because the old dead battery is unable to charge due to its age/wear).

As previously mentioned, this iBook has not had a charged, working battery since August 2005, when my original yo-yo shorted out. The old battery was run down to 0%. It was actually getting 3.5 hours at the time but was completely empty for 3-4 weeks and didn't charge when the new charger (non-Apple brand) arrived the following month.

 
Sorry, I hate it when I accidentally miss a part. :p

Sounds like you have everything taken care of. Let's hope the "new" new battery doesn't have any issues. ;)

 
The new battery won't charge either! If anyone else has experienced this problem, does it often take more than one reset cycle to get the charger going again?

 
It is certainly the case that on a Wallstreet, Battery Reset is a crapshoot — or, to put it another way, whether it "takes" or not depends heavily on which way the wind is blowing, the cycle of the moon, and how high the gulls are flying. I had a new-ish Wallstreet battery "re-awaken" this year after 2 years thought dead, during which it just would not charge, no matter how many dozens and dozens of times I tried. Then, I stuck it in one day by mistake, ran battery reset, and all of a sudden, it came to life. Now it gives three+ hours of runtime. Go figure.

It is possible, I suppose, that the backup battery in a Clamshell needs some juice in order for the charge circuitry to do its business, and this is something that you might want to consider.

So, two thoughts: 1) I would persist in the first instance; 2) your old battery may well not be as dead as you think.

 
Tried everything again with the new battery and nothing worked.

I ordered a VST battery charger from PowerBook Medic. This will allow me to determine if the battery is at fault (and also if my ten year old original battery, which DOES give me an AMBER light--unlike the new battery--is actually dead). I splurged for the 2 day shipping so it should be here by Wednesday or so.

 
I got the VST charger and while it appears to work flawlessly, the problem now seems to be in the iBook itself.

The new battery took about 2-3 hours to charge (which I know is pretty typical for this battery). I put it in the iBook and it wouldn't start up without AC power. When I disconnected the AC adapter after booting, I got maybe 10 seconds of battery time until the computer went to sleep.

The control strip showed a battery icon only (just a picture of a little light blue AA battery). There was no meter when I disconnected the power, not even one with all white bars. The iBook somehow can see there is a battery, but has no idea how to read its capacity--a fully-charged battery should not show up as a nearly dead one.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I've reset the power management unit, zapped the PRAM, and ran the NVRAM commands. I haven't yet tried a clean system install but am thinking about doing exactly that today.

There is a always a chance I have now received two defective batteries in a row. I'd like to attempt to resolve this within the next two days so I can send back the items if I need to.

Clamshells have no backup battery. Not sure what else I could try as I've exhausted every method known to me for this.

For the record--the charger shows that my old batteries from ten years ago are both dead.

 
I know nothing of Clamshells, but the Wallstreet has a charge card that connects to the logic board at the front of the machine, and it often goes bad. Replacement of the charge board is often mentioned as a potential cure for anomalies such as not recognizing a battery, not charging from it, and not running from a known-good one. I do not know the physical layout of your machine, or whether there is a separate charge card, but two thoughts:

1. Have you checked that the battery is actually making a good physical connection with the charging circuitry—that the wires are present and accounted for, properly aligned, and that solder joints from the connecting "springy wires" to the board are good?

2. It has been a while, but I do seem to recall that the charge card of a Wallstreet has a lot of capacitors on it. I suppose that one potential fix would be a caps job, but beyond this I am out of my depth.

 
I've already done that about 12 times to no avail. I'm thinking of just selling the new battery and charger and continuing to use it exclusively on AC power as I've done since 2005. I'll try all those resets again and if it doesn't work, look for the battery and charger combo in the trading post section over the weekend.

 
Still no luck. I suspect caps, and given the computer's ability work off a wall outlet, I'm just going to continue using it that way. The battery and charger together are for sale now. See my post in the "trading post" section.

 
I wound up having no takers for either the charger or the battery, so I decided to bump this thread and see if there were any further thoughts.

With the iBook now my #3 laptop, I haven't used it much lately, but am still thinking of getting it up and going off the battery again. I still use this machine for certain tasks (sent a fax with it today and continue to rely on it for Photoshop) and don't want to be chained to the wall outlet.

I have the following equipment at present:

1. A battery with a warranty that appears to charge and work correctly.

2. An iBook which won't charge the battery and won't recognize the charge in it.

3. An external charger, powered by an AC adapter, which can charge this battery.

4. Two working adapters, one Apple and one generic.

5. Two dead batteries and one charger with a shorted-out cord.

I did move the iBook between chargers while it was asleep. It was probably off the adapter for 1-2 minutes and remained asleep instead of shutting down. This shows the battery does something in the computer.

I'm running OS 9.1. The install on the computer dates from May 2008, which is also when I last wiped the hard drive, and is not the original OS from the computer--that would be 9.0.4. There is currently no version of OS X installed on the machine. I've tried resetting the battery with Apple's program and through the command line with no luck.

A few things I've thought of:

1. Reinstall the system. This does appear to be a hardware issue, but it probably wouldn't hurt, especially since I generally do this every three years on my pre-OS X systems.

2. Find a clamshell somewhere and see if it takes the battery. Trouble is, I don't know of anyone else with a clamshell right now--everyone I know has replaced theirs with something newer.

3. Consider replacing the actual power management unit. Not an easy task, and one I'd rather not do since taking a clamshell apart isn't the most enjoyable way to spend an evening, but perhaps the only option.

Of course, I could try resetting everything again just to see if it would work. Too bad I've had zero luck with it so far!

Any other suggestions would be welcome.

 
Again, it sounds to me like the charge card has gone walkies. I would say that:

1. You obviously need to confirm that the spring-like contacts on the charge card are not corroded and that they are actually aligned with the battery contacts. That might be possible without disassembly (though as I do not own a Clamshell, I am no authority).

2. It might be possible to revive the charge card by replacing the few electrolytic capacitors found on the thing. My theory is that the batteries in the machines that use the Battery Reset utility just don't respond well to currents that aren't just right. In roughly the same era, Wallstreet charge cards were well-known points of failure, and it is probably the same technology that was used in these machines, given that they run the same software and come from the same engineers.

3. The fact that the charge card is physically isolated from the logic board also raises the possibility, I suppose, that the connecting wires have become disconnected or the like.

Having said that, I just took a peek at the disassembly/reassembly required in dealing with a Clamshell (ouch!). That is at least as bad as a 2400c, and that is saying something.

 
Same problem - but SOLVED:

I was ready to return my 2nd battery to NewTech when I decided to boot up from my Panther disc and install it (this OS 9.2 Clamshell has no firewire so it won't go to Tiger). Once it booted, the charger plug turned orange, it recognized the battery and it began charging!

I have another battery that half-charges, so I didn't think it was my hardware at fault.

Somehow temporarily starting with another system allowed the computer to recognize and charge the battery. I had upgraded from 9.0 and done a hardware upgrade before I bought the battery.

Come to find out, the Clamshell, not having a PRAM battery, saves the last bit of juice in the battery for it's own settings. I'd done all the other acrobatics but I hadn't left it without a battery overnight - that might have worked as well.

Good luck, it's still a handy-dandy notepad/typewriter/journal.

 
I do have an extra copy of Jaguar sitting around. Did it start charging when you booted it or installed it? I really don't want OS X clogging up the hard drive on this machine, but if it's going to kick-start my battery, I may give it a try at least with a boot.

 
My Jaguar CD didn't boot the machine. Instead, it gave me white lines across the screen after the Apple appeared.

It's a retail 10.2.3 disc. Any ideas?

 
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