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Q: Strange iBook G3 battery issue

I have an iBook G3 FireWire model which won't recognise its battery. It displays as 5% charged with the "fully charged" icon next to it and the menu saying "Calculating... until full." Unplugging the computer will force it to shut down. The computer's optical drive is broken, so I had to install Tiger via USB. The first time, it worked just fine, charging the battery as normal. The problem arose when I installed some updates (I think it was the 10.4.11 Combo updater) and shut down. Upon restart, it never reached the "Starting Mac OS X" screen, just staying on a light blue screen with a perpetually spinning wheel. After attempting multiple restarts, I unplugged the computer while it was on said screen, and it lost all power just as it does now. I reinstalled Tiger with the same USB and disk image the next day. Both http://reviews.ebay.com/iBook-Clamshell-Battery-Issue?ugid=10000000007193925 and booting into Open Firmware and entering the commands reset-nvram, then set-defaults, then reset-all yield the same result: it will charge to 13%, then stop and say "Calculating... until full." The charger is known to be working, it charges my PowerBook just fine.

Data - iBook G3 (FireWire), Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Aug 2, 2012 6:55 AM

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Q: Strange iBook G3 battery issue

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