Pismo new battery flashing light then dead
Greetings.
The relatively new battery (after-market M7318) in my PB Pismo suddenly misbehaved and died. I say died, but I dont believe it! Here's the timeline of events.
I normally operate the PB with AC cord. Battery indicator in MenuBar always shows 'plugged' icon & 100% (or very close to it).
Yesterday night, rather than Shut Down, I simply closed the Clam to put the PB to sleep.
This morning at 05:30, a storm passed through, Thunder awoke me and lo, the power went out. Called the power company to report the outage, but shortly after hanging up, the power came back on. Only stayed out for about 10 minutes.
All the while, PB seemed to be sleeping peacefully, sleep indicator light pulsing gently.
Being awake now, after making coffee, I opened the PB, logged in from sleep, and noticed the time of 06:11 and that the MenuBar battery indicator was 'plugged' and at 97%. Having a smoldering question at YahooAnswers, opened browser to that site.
THIS is when I noticed that the lights ON the Battery where not normal (I am used to seeing them all alight). When I noticed it there was ONE light, blinking.
Observing the MenuBar battery indicator, it read 0% !! So... from 97% to 0% in minutes seeming wrong to me, I Clicked the MenuBar battery indicator icon which indicated (greyed out) "Calculating... until full". Looked back at the lights on the battery, still with one light blinking. Don't have a reason, but I then removed the battery, observing the light blinking more closely, the light went out!
Inserted the battery back in the bay, above state the same - 0%, "Calculating...until full". Unplugged the AC and PB goes off - no wonder, no battery with juice! Plugged AC back in and Started Up normally with no ill effects observed.
The above remains the state of the PB & battery.
Started the quest for help by coming here.
After much reading of not so "similar" articles, I am convinced that trying this, then that is futile without expert advice. Just too many variables and procedures to make a judgement about what to follow.
FYI, I have used System Profiler to verify that the battery can be and is detected. Battery = Yes -> remove battery -> Refresh -> Battery = No -> insert battery -> Refresh -> Battery = Yes.
I realize that there will be many bits of info needed to help determine the "State of the PowerBooK". I await inquiry for specifics.
As I said in the beginning, I am not convinced that the battery is the problem. It all happened TOO FAST. Not having spare batteries laying around as I used to in my RoadRunner days, swapping out batteries for a test is not possible.
I am really good at following precedures and documenting things, so Occams's Razor to Calculus seems like a plan.
BTW, everything BUT this seems normal.
Thanx in advance for the Help
CCC aka J Jordan
PowerBook, Mac OS X (10.4.11), G3/500-FireWire, 512MbRAM, 40Gb