PowerBook G4 1.25Ghz 15" battery full at 419mAh

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Level 1

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PowerBook G4 1.25Ghz 15" battery full at 419mAh

I recently picked up a nice old PowerBook G4. It's the FW800 1.25Ghz 15" model. I bought it knowing it needs a new battery, so I have one ordered.

In System Profile, it shows the battery as Good and capacity of 419 mAh. I'm just making sure it's showing that because the battery is toast, and not because there's an underlying cause.

I've already reset PRAM and Power Management with no changes, as well as calibrated the battery.

Should the new battery solve this, or is there anything I should do to prepare for the new battery? It's running 10.5.8 with all updates, and I applied the battery update as well.

Thanks

Posted on Oct 14, 2013 7:04 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Allan Jones

Level 9

68,942 points

Oct 14, 2013 7:50 AM in response to RedGeminiPA

That is a classic sign of an ancient and used-up battery. You can fill it to the top but, after years of use, "top" is now 419mah instead of the 4000-5500mah of a new one.

A new battery should fix that.

The only thing you many encounter with power is that these models use an internal backup battery to hold settings when the main battery is removed while the computer is off wall power. Nearly all these backup batteries are now dead, and replacing is not a trivial task. Requires a take-down and use of a soldering iron on small parts.

The dead backup battery can cause the coomptuer to fail to start immediately if the main battery is dead of removed. If you put the main back in, the computer will ofter start in 30 -120 seconds.

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Answer 2

RedGeminiPA Author

Level 1

50 points

Oct 14, 2013 11:26 AM in response to Allan Jones

Thanks for the confirmation. So far, the internal battery seems to be holding up. I've removed the main battery a couple of times with no loss of date/time etc.

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