My battery charges but dies quickly

Hello and welcome to the support community.

Try is resetting the Power Management Unit. (PMU)

Here is some infomation on how to do that:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

Best of luck

Another Welcome!

Realistically, batteries last maybe three years. Often, batteries that are seldom used don't last as long as those that are used a lot. Exercise is good for this class of battery.

The newest PowerBook are now over six years old. Your symptoms describe a battery that is well beyond it expected life.

You can get data on your battery by doing "About this Mac" from your Apple menu and, in the resulting window, clicking "More Info..."

That launches System Profiler. In the left-hand "Contents" pane select "Power":

Please tell us what it says under "Charge Information" and "Health." That a good way to diagnose battery issues.

Apple no longer sells replacement bateries for PowerBooks but there are some third-pary vendors that can help.

Based on the age of the PB, I'm sure you need a new battery. I had to replace the battery in my PB as the original battery would only last about 15-20 minutes on a 100% charge..

 Cheers, Tom 😉

Erick93 wrote:

Cycle count 455

Look at this link. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1519 You are past the max cycle count of 300.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

Full charge capacity 64163

Remaining capacity 64134

Those are error values The battery is toast.

If you go back to System Profiler's main page:

and post what the SECOND line (either "Machine Model" or "Model Identifier" depending on the OS version) reads plus your screen size, we can then look up vendors for you. Also, it's helpful to know about where you are. No sense our posting a bunch of vendors from one country if you can't order from there.

Perfect. Here are some resources:

OWC is in Illinois and focuses on Mac accessories:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple_laptop/batteries/PowerBook_G4_15_AL

The cheaper one has only a 90-day warranty. You might call or e-mail them to ask why the difference. OWC is very good with pre-sales tech support. I mention this because I've not seen them offer two tiers of battery warranty before.

I've bought two G3 PowerBook batteries for a friend from this outfit and they have given excellent service:

http://www.global-batteries.com/product_info.php/cPath/1_12/products_id/2664

get a new one

get a new one from amazon it is alot cheaper

If I do buy the battery can I use the same charger?

If the battery is the proper one, yes. There are a lot of counterfeit batteries floating about, plus dead uses ones sodl as "working". That's why I linked two vendors I trust.