iBook shuts off unexpectedly

I'd take it back to Apple.
It should not be turning off for no reason.

Check energy saver and see if you've got it scheduled to shut down.

The same thing is happening to mine, as well. The issue started less than a week after ownership of the ibook.

I'm able to restart after closing the screen in a closed position - then re-opening it in the upright. It behaves as if it went to "sleep." When it wakes, I'm at the same place as before - same web page, etc.

I've also noticed that it seems to happen when my hand rests on the keypad - no dragging - no tapping. Though this is empirical evidence.

If anyone from Apple has an idea about what's going on - please post. Is there really something wrong here?

Mine has done the same thing for over two years now. I used to think it was related to the battery but after months of testing I found that if I press on the bottom of my iBook(with my thumb) about two inches down from the screen hinge(the hinge opposite to the power plug), my iBook shuts off every time. Give that a try and see if it shuts off. My guess is that the tolerances are so tight inside the laptop that if the bottom plastic is flexed enough, it forces the logic board into contact with the metal shield and causes a short, effectively shutting off the machine. I have yet to find a fix.

Somethng similar happening here with my iBook G3.

It suddenly shuts down, no warning. Does not make a difference if it is on mains or on battery or on mains with no battery.

At times it stays on for hours, at times shuts down while I am restarting it from a previous shut down.

And it shuts down also when I am not touching it and it is basically sitting idle... and it shts down when I am working

The problem has been preceded by another issue: if I shut down the iBook, I could not turn it on again if I did not reset the PMU *every time*

Anybody has a clue?

After a few tests, I now strongly suspects the culprit is the additional RAM I installed a couple of month ago.

Removing it seems to have solved the problem.
Interestingly enough, the RAM has been a good citizen for several weeks, I wonder if it is the RAM or a problem with the connector.

I also have exactly the same behavior with my ibook (bought one month ago!). Last time was yesterday and it shut off while I was importing pictures from my camera : I have lost everything...
If someone has a solution to avoid this kind of ... let's say "inconvenience", that would be great.

I am having the same problems. Either (a) the backlight for the screen turns off unexpectedly or (b) the computer shuts down unexpectedly. The former is no more than an irritant since when I shut the screen, reopen it and touch the touchpad, the screen comes back to life. However, the latter is a real pain as it means that I have lost stuff that I am working on. Has anyone spoken to Apple about this.....by the sounds of things, it is a glitch with the hardware.

I too have been experiencing this problem with my four year old iBook G3. The iBook works fine until I put it to sleep, then when I try to wake it up, the screen doesn't come on. The only way I've been able to remedy it was give it a cold shut down, take out the battery, wait a few minutes, then put it back in and restart.

My iBook has never done this before, this is a fairly recent development. It did however come about after I upgraded to Tiger, so I suspect that has something to do with it.

Philippe -
I agree that it must be a Tiger thing. I have a 2 year old iBook G4/800 that has just started doing exactly the same thing. It works fine when plugged in, but shuts off (does not go to sleep) when it is on battery. I just had it happen again after I did a boot to the Tiger install disk to run repair disk, which it needed, by the way. The battery was fully charged and the iBook quit after about 2 minutes of running, so it isn't a heat issue. It has done this to me both when I had it in my lap as well as on a table, so I don't believe it is a hardware issue.

Having said all that, I don't think it is just a Tiger thing, because I have been using my iBook with Tiger since the day it came out. It must have to do with something that has changed in the last month or so. When was the last update/patch?

Mike

Now it doesn't seem to want to work, even if it's plugged into the power and after I've removed the battery for an extended amount of time.

Moreso, now I've noticed a considerable few second delay between when I power on my iBook and when the iBook chimes.

It was working fine up until Wednesday night when I had installed a few new system updates. Now it's not working at all. Leaving it turned off for a few hours seems to remedy the problem now, but that certainly is NOT an option for me to persue everytime this happens.

This is getting rather frustrating.

The refusing to work while plugged in hasn't happened with mine (yet). However, I also think that my iBook is getting sluggish - slow starts, slower response when it wakes from sleep, etc.
The strange thing about my iBook quitting is that it was working fine on Tuesday; last night it corrupted the image where I kept all of my E-mail.
If I didn't know better, I'd think my iBook had a virus!

Steven,

I've had my iBook a month now too and the same thing has happened to me twice, both times I was running off the battery (not the power adapater).

The first time it just cut off, and as you say, no shutting down, just dead. I thought maybe the battery had run out (even though I knew I had about 70-80% charge)but there were 3 green lights on the battery indicator.

After about 10 minutes trying to turn it on with nothing happening, it finally switched back on and all was fine again.

The second time happened yesterday, 5 days later. This time I was at home and had a full charge (and the battery indicator on the back showed 4 bars). I tried everything to turn it back on - connecting the power adapter made no difference nor did pressing Ctrl, Apple Key and power button. I kept trying it every couple of hours but no joy. As a last resort I took out the battery and put it back in again and it worked!! Unfortunately I had lost the slideshow I was working on and the clock was reset to 1970.

So my diagnosis is that maybe there is fault with the battery connections. The first time it happened I must have nudged the battery a bit which made it work again. Though this doesn't explain why the battery indicator on the back still worked?

I'm going to call Apple Support later - no doubt they will make me spend hours reinstalling everything and I'll have to wait till it happens a third time before they'll do anything.

Hello, I am also having this problem where my iBook just spontaneously shuts off. It has happened to me three times now. I am also having the problem with Airport dying with 1.5GB of RAM installed (see the "iBook G4-Networking-Airport Quits requires restart" thread), so I recently entered the terminal command to limit memory to 1GB, which does workaround the Airport problem, but now my iBook just spontaneously powers down with I think around 50% of battery life left. Also, when this happens, the computer will not turn on again until I remove all sources of power (battery/AC) and then reconnect either the battery or power adapter. Is that also what happens to you guys?

Couple questions for consideration of this problem:

1) I've seen people talk about how many charge cycles their batteries have been through. How do they know this number? Is there an app or utility that tells you this?

2) Are any of you who are having this problem also running 1.5GB of RAM?

3) Have any of you implemented the terminal firmware command to limit RAM to 1GB (which works around the Airport problem)?

Thanks,
Bryan

Same issue here, and my iBook is just over two months old. After working on it from the battery for about 45 minutes, it just shuts down (or sleeps and can't be woken). Once attached to AC power and power button is pressed, it'll restart. Not crazy about having a laptop that has to be used as a desktop! Apple Care has recommended that I reset the Power Manager and recalibrate the battery, so I will try that. Frustrating, to be sure.

Same problem here w/G4 iBook...also, clearly battery is not lasting as long as it did...problems started with upgrade to 10.4.3 ???....Tried resetting PMU and PRAM..didn't help. Apple needs to get involved.