Powerbook 170 battery failure? Tips?

Question

Level 2

372 points

Powerbook 170 battery failure? Tips?

Have an old Powerbook 170. 2 batteries. External Lind conditioner/charger.

I've done complete discharge, recharging cycles, 4 hours+, even sequential ones. I then put either battery into the PB 170 and get only about 1 minute of use before the battery warning comes on.

As soon as I replug the power adapter, the battery level (software on screen) rapidly returns to 100%. Unplug, back to running on empty.

I've also left the unit in sleep mode with the battery inside the unit. Same thing.

How can I determine if the problem is the batteries or something with the PB? Is there something that needs resetting?

Any tips, tricks, suggestions appreciated.

iBook G4 1.33 GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Posted on Mar 26, 2006 8:41 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 26, 2006 10:55 AM in response to AstroMacMan

You may look at:
http://www.whoopis.com/computer_repair/#portable
for the PB 170,testing the NiCd-batteries.

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Answer 2

AstroMacMan Author

Level 2

372 points

Mar 26, 2006 11:52 AM in response to AppleIIFreak

That's useful if only because my symptoms didn't appear in their symptom chart! I'll have to read it more and see if I've missed something.

I've also discovered that the brightness slider control doesn't change the screen brightness except during startup--then it works perfectly! Once everything's loaded, it's non-functional.

I'm presuming my batteries are toast, although if that were true why would they show fully charged in the Battery display?

Could I have induced some kind of reverse conditioning effect with the external charger? That now the "memory state" is little or now power?

The PB had been lying dormant until I needed it to transfer an old piece of software from an 800 K disk to the current iBook!

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Answer 3

Mar 27, 2006 1:38 AM in response to AstroMacMan

There is only a passage about testing the Ni-CD-battery with a Voltmeter.
Ni-Cd batteries have a strong memory-effect-means you are not able to load to fully charge anymore.They only will charge to a little amount,seen as full,but discharge rapidly on use.
I once have discharged such a battery(from an old Video-Camera) with the following procedure: Connected two Copper-wires and inserted these wires into water,put just as much salt into this water as to see light bubbles on the wires(electrolyse) and let it stand outside(!) full night(because of revolving hazardeous Chlor!).It was then able to reload quite well for a time.
You should also test the PRAM-battery-if the batteries are gone-it's gone,too.

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Answer 4

AstroMacMan Author

Level 2

372 points

Mar 27, 2006 4:21 AM in response to AppleIIFreak

You're more adventurous than I am clearly! Appreciate your feedback.

Well, my Lind external charger/conditioner has a Discharge button and cycle that is supposed to do a deep discharge (several hours) and then fast charge followed by a slow trickle charge back to 100% (another several hours). So that should have taken care of any memory effect. (Don't have a voltmeter.)

Now, what's intriguing is that I turned off extensions-- and my brightness slider control came back and the battery lasted for a time. No more instant decrease in power!

So, I'm now in the midst of ye old extensions testing. At first I thought it might be Wiz Tools, a wonderful utility for the old powerbooks, as it has software for controlling the brightness settings. I figured it had gotten stuck!

But that's not it... now the suspect is Ram Doubler.

What's odd, though, is that all these used to work on this computer!

-------

Hmm... just turned off RD and the brightness slider control is working again ⚠ and the battery doesn't instantly go down (!!). On the road to a solution I think... maybe the baterries are old, just not that OLD! Perhaps an RD pref setting has gotten corrupted.

I tried resetting the PMU with the two paper clips in the back. That didn't make a difference.

As to resetting PRAM, does the old trick of option-apple key-p-r on start up work on PB 170s? Unclear... http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58416 I'll just have to try it and see.

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Answer 5

Mar 27, 2006 8:07 AM in response to AstroMacMan

You may look at:
Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
I hope PB 170 is a Macintosh computer.
My PB 190 works with that.
Voltmeter is cheap and good for testing.
It wasn't adventurous-didn't have a discharger who controls speed of discharging-rest is simple physics.
Good luck with your testing-but you can't test the PRAM-battery either.
Some more: Do you have Lind utilities?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=10572

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Answer 6

Mar 28, 2006 12:30 AM in response to AppleIIFreak

Perhaps you may use Troubleshooting Powerbooks:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50595

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Answer 7

AstroMacMan Author

Level 2

372 points

Mar 29, 2006 5:09 AM in response to AppleIIFreak

Oh, yes, PB170 is an Apple-- Powerbook 170. Thanks for the other leads... I'm getting several minutes now out of my batteries-- an amazing improvement.

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