Q: Pismo new battery flashing light then dead

BREAKING NEWS!!

1% battery charge!!

Still no ;ights on Battery.

CCC aka J J

K

I sense you are fishing for more info, so here goes...

You said:

There is a chance the battery you bought has some defect that may be the cause of its apparent inability to charge; however there also may be an issue involving the part sometimes known as a DC-in Board where the power supply connects to the port in the computer, and a circuit there helps control power flow to run the computer, ration power to the battery, and charge the battery as needed when the computer is off or on.

To be clear, the Pismo & battery have been happy cohorts since Jul2011. At that time Pismo DC-in board was professionally (Apple Authorized) replaced & the battery was bought then. I am pretty sure the pro would have bought just the right replacement battery

You also said:

... Early PowerBooks have a PRAM battery that is separate from the power battery and has a limited life, it is on the logic board and can affect system performance when it fails.

AND...

Does the clock (PRAM) battery on the logic board have any signs of life?  This can affect startup on some models of Mac and can relate to odd  issues, perhaps if it has not been replaced, you could check into that,  too.

Interesting.

I have zapped the PRAM.

When you say "system performance when it fails", I assume you mean the "startup" & "odd" issues you referred to.

There are no issues with startup(see #1 below), BUT "oddly" I am experiencing a couple of issues that seem Energy Saver CP related. It seems that (Power Adapter plugged and mode chosen in ES/CP) the Pismo is behaving as if it perceives itself to be running off the battery, exhibiting screen behaviors that are default to ES/CP Battery mode...

1. After startup, the screen brightness seems to be at 50%. I increase it to 100% using the ƒ2-key (this is NEW - since battery issue)
2. Screen brightness dims after a few minutes of inactivity (this NOT new but oddly very intermittent until NOW is consistent)

If necessary, I will replace the PRAM batteries, but they do not seem to have died. (Maybe they are dying?)

You further said:

Hopefully you can convince your Pismo and replacement main battery to work and play together; there are situations where they may, but should within a reasonable amount of time, especially after the correct resets have been tried more than three times.

I am unsure what you mean by "... situations where they may, but should within a reasonable amount of time, ..." work and play together.

When you say "... a reasonable amount of time, especially after the correct resets have been tried more than three times.", what are the "correct resets" to which you refer? Reset button on the back I know about (some). Other resets? Significance of "three times"?

BTW, Battery indicator in MenuBar has increased to a whopping 2% since i posted the BREAKING NEWS of display of 1% yesterday. Yeee F***in Haw!

I still yearn for solution...

CCC aka J Jordan

K

MORE random info... After reading more stuff regarding batteries...

1. still no lights on the battery
2. MenuBar indicator STILL shows
   1. plugged icon
   2. 2% (UP from 0% when thread began & 1% after 7 hours time)
   3. still "Calculating... until full" (greyed out) when clicked
   4. NO "Lightning Bolt" charging indicator icon
3. AC Adapter plug light SOLID GREEN (should be YELLOW if charging the battery)

What about the "battery button" I keep reading about? I see the 4 small (unlit) lights and 1 "long oval" (light? / button? / both?) - bottom line NO LIGHTS on battery & I dont feel any reaction pressing the "long oval" thing.

CCC / J J

Yet MORE... This time ACTION TAKEN:

RESET Power Management Unit (PMU) following instructions :

homertime33 

Reset the PMU:

Shut down computer

unplug power

Remove Battery

Press the ON button for 10 seconds with the battery out, and the cord disconnected.

Replace battery

Replace cord

Turn on computer - PMU reset.

Charge the battery (if it will) to full, then run down to 0 again, and full again, and your battery should be optimized

Last step(s) is POSSIBLY in progress. Tell ya why...

After reset PMU (#1 & #2 are NEW)

1. Left indicator light on battery blinks, all during startup.
2. continues blinking for ±1 minute after login & login items load (±3 minutes from Power button press)
3. MenuBar indicator reads 3% (see previous reply for % history) "Calculating... until full"
4. Since battery had a little trickle left, unplugged AC adapter
5. Pismo ran off the battery for ≤2 minutes
6. Plugged AC Adapter back in
7. StartUp
8. Current state
   1. Indicator 0%
   2. No Lightning Bolt
   3. AC Adapter plug GREEN not Yellow
   4. No lights on battery

Could it be that Reset PMU did tha trick? I guess waiting a few hours may tell if the battery is actually charging.

SIDE QUESTION: Is there "A Better Battery Indicator" software that might be more forthcoming about what is actually happening (or not happening) with battery and/or Power Management??

CCC

K Shaffer wrote:

 

There may be a source (somewhere?) online for a free battery gauge utility

that would work in an obsolete OS X 10.4.11 Tiger system; one of the last

best items was a Widget that could show several things at once, including

battery. However the more recent ones do not work in PPC Mac or systems

earlier than 10.6. iStat Pro may still have an older archive version online.

 

Well, guess what...

Here's a current (pun) Screen Grab...

I am eminently unqualified to make a whole lotta sense of these values, since I don't know what they should be. The fact that there are values at all and  "Info" seems to indicate that Pismo is at least communicating with battery.

This values/graphs seem to be cumulative since installation. The "+" buttons expand the time lapsed of the graph(s) visible in a window, no matter what size (shown is default state but will maximize for the "big picture")

Circled is 4% (up from 3% last post) after a little <24 hours after installation(0%). Methinx the Status should NOT be Trickle if charging properly. Doesn't seem to meet your stated expectations for success, does it?  I followed the steps for PMU, PRAM & tiny RESET button stated in my post immediately prior, 3 times as you suggested.

BTW, I  tried the battery in the right bay... no difference immediately apparent, so back to the left bay battery went.

In yet an earlier post, I said:

What about the "battery button" I keep reading about? I see the 4 small (unlit) lights and 1 "long oval" (light? / button? / both?) - bottom line NO LIGHTS on battery & I dont feel any reaction pressing the "long oval" thing.

I think I mean a battery RESET button that would affect the battery's mini-processor? I suppose the above question still remains. Can any light be shed?

Have a good US Open & World Cup.

J J / CCC

It occurred to me System Profiler data might complete the knowledge baseline:

System Power Settings:

  AC Power:

  System Sleep Timer (Minutes):    0

  Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes):    0

  Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    30

  Automatic Restart On Power Loss:    No

  Wake On AC Change:    No

  Wake On Clamshell Open:    Yes

  Wake On LAN:    No

  Wake On Modem Ring:    No

  Display Sleep Uses Dim:    No

  Battery Power:

  System Sleep Timer (Minutes):    10

  Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes):    10

  Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    2

  Automatic Restart On Power Loss:    No

  Wake On AC Change:    No

  Wake On Clamshell Open:    Yes

  Wake On Modem Ring:    No

  Display Sleep Uses Dim:    Yes

  Reduce Brightness:    No

Battery Information:

  Battery Installed:    Yes

  First low level warning:    No

  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):    6600

  Remaining Capacity (mAh):    253

  Amperage (mA):    0

  Voltage (mV):    11179

  Cycle Count:    0

72 hour update (for what its worth) with Questions and Theory(?)

Battery Level is now at a whopping 30% !! (= ±10%/day and thus ±1%/2.4hours <= significant?, see images following)

The aforementioned XBattery app seems to indeed be relying upon the battery's internal microprocessor, since results shown are cumulative whether or not Pismo is awake, asleep or shut-down.

Following are XBattery app WindowGrabs that show graph "spikes" ± every ... wait for it ... every 2+ hours!

Heres the XBattery GRAPH Grabs in 3 magnification views:

VOLTS

4 HOUR

12 HOUR

72 HOUR

AMPERES

4 HOUR

12 HOUR

72 HOUR

LEVEL

4 HOUR

12 HOUR

72 HOUR

QUESTIONS:

What Pismo PMU activity is actually involved in the battery charging process?

Pismo PMU must certainly need to know "if" charging is required & if so, then send volts/amps the battery's way

IF Pismo PMU & Battery were having a civil conversation regarding the battery's need for charge, wouldn't the graphs/values be strong and steady for a charge cycle?

Do value spikes actually indicate a "charge cycle"?

If so, shouldn't a "normal" charge cycle graph show a relatively smooth climb over time?

For instance, the 72hour Level graph should be a slope rather than steps

HYPOTHESIS:

Assuming: the XBattery data is indeed cumulative regardless of Pismo's state of awakeness AND that indicates Battery Microprocessor(BM) is not dead

The Pismo PMU is misbehaving.

OR

The BM is misbehaving.

OR

I am in favor this one:

The critical Battery "state of charge" data is erroneous in that, for a moment, the PMU is told by the BM that "I need charging" THEN is told "I am charged" in short order.

The voltage graph spike/drop is abrupt but not "complete" in that, it spikes high then does not fall to the original level but some level above the beginning of the spike, then tails away until the next spike (see 4 HOUR graph)

The tail away is sorta confusing to me, but I am ignorant.

The Ampere graph does not, as a rule, show ANYTHING but a spike from 0.000A to a high of 2.043A then back to 0.000A in a very short time span – then level until the next spike.

Along the same lines, the Level graph shows an abrupt "step up" at the ±2 hour interval

I am, of course, ignorant and probably wrong.

I wish there was a Battery Utility app for the Pismo that could reset the BM like the PMU can be reset (I guess it worked). I have Googled such a thing, to no avail.

Also, is there a forum that deals with Batteries & Power to which I could cross post this thread?

Patiently waiting for a full charge - by my analysis should be done in about a week. We'll see what happens then.

Thanx for your help

CCC aka J J

Aside: I am very displeased with the "New and Improved" Discussions design. I lost my personalized page and all "following/created" associations to my account - had to "Intuitively" drill down from the N&I front end to get to this post (which indicated I was already following it) - I had to click the FOLLOW link/button & click it again to make it really 'followed' by my identity. This seemed to trigger the follow/created quality in all the others though - I guess we can call that a feature (just like MicroSoft calls a documented BUG a FEATURE)

On to the issue.

In browsing around (actually using the search function in the header), I discovered:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/

AND

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

On http://www.apple.com/batteries/ we find this colorful graph that explains some of my prior questions.

http://images.apple.com/batteries/images/chargechart.gif

... WAIT - posting this to see if image actually shows up

THIS POS SiteWare: I am very displeased with the "New and Improved" Discussions design. I lost my personalized page and all "following/created" associations to my account - had to "Intuitively" drill down from the N&I front end to get to this post (which indicated I was already following it) - I had to click the FOLLOW link/button & click it again to make it really 'followed' by my identity. This seemed to trigger the follow/created quality in all the others though - I guess we can call that a feature (just like MicroSoft calls a documented BUG a FEATURE)

After composing this message the first time-- I COULD NOT REPLY/SAVE IT - I fortunately Saved the text to TextEdit bfore  trying agin here. IT HAD BETTER FORMATTING THE FIRST TIME BUT TO **** WITH IT.

=================================================================

On to the issue.

In browsing around (actually using the search function in the header), I discovered:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/

AND

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

On http://www.apple.com/batteries/ we find this colorful graph that explains some of my prior questions.

http://images.apple.com/batteries/images/chargechart.gif

... it seems that the XBattery app VOLTAGE graph is mirroring this graph (tho not as colorfully)

The  Spike on XBattery Voltage graph coincides BOTH (I believe) with the Beginning  of the green voltage/cell line AND the 1st blue-dotted-vertical line which is the END of the Stage 1 Fast Charge.

On both XBattery & the image above, theCharge Current 'Tailing off" slope is the trickle charge from 80% to 100% charge(2nd blue-dotted-vertical or the end of Stage 2 Trickle Charge.

Every time I look at XBattery, it indicates "Trickle" status - which is normal Stage 2 charging. This indicates that I am never looking at the charge status value when it spikes OR that it happens so fast that it can't be reported to anything other than the graph.

Notably:

Trickle Charge is Normal and expected.

The 2-hour Stage 1 Fast Charge never happens.

Being ignorant, I dunno what this means. PMU misbehaing? Battery Microprocessor misbehaving? Both? Neither?

Now for the RANT...

The aforementioned http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html page was kinda hard for me, a power user, to find. After all, I first stated (a week ago) that I had searched the community for answers before asking for aid.

Page sez in part:

Standard Maintenance

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time. An ideal use would be a commuter who uses her notebook on the train, then plugs it in at the office to charge. This keeps the battery juices flowing. If on the other hand, you use a desktop computer at work, and save a notebook for infrequent travel, Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month. Need a reminder? Add an event to your desktop’s iCal. When your battery no longer holds sufficient charge to meet your needs, you may choose to replace it. If your notebook came with a built-in battery, you should have the battery replaced only by an Apple Authorized Service Provider.

This simple (albeit obscure) advice seems rational & reasonable – but IT IS NEWS TO ME that "Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time." They are basically saying that any Apple Portable Computer was Never Meant To Be Someone's Primary - let alone ONLY - COMPUTER (at least from a Battery Maintenance perspective).

If this is not true, all they would have to "recommend" would be "don't leave the battery in the bay all the time" or somesuch, then the rest of the advice would apply nicely. But of course, this would not encourage one to BUY A DESKTOP AND BUY A LAPTOP  now would it. Subtle, yet obvious corporate greed creeping into simple copy-editing.

... and Bless Us All, Every One... - Tiny Tim

CCC/JJ

UPDATE

Same ol' same ol'

XBattery is consistent:

Stage 1 Cycle = Very Short (perhaps 1 sec to 5 mins? - hard to tell from resolution of graph)

Stage 2 Cycle = ±2.4 hours trickle

60% charge

Best to all

CCC

Well, it happened again ! ! ! ANOTHER  Misbehavior! ! ! !

Power Outage! at 04:40 CST today.

don't ask me how, but I awoke from sleep to witness it! Maybe my dog had a premontion and made some noise...

Pismo State = Shut Down, AC Adapter plugged in

I will skip ahead a bit in time to report...

EXACTLY SAME BEHAVIOR AS BEFORE = Battery Level very quickly to 0% (< 15 minutes) after StartUp

Keep in mind that any Grabs are as I write this after 08:30 CST following Starting Up and examinations  and that everything appeared as I left it at ShutDown last night when first began exam
     

My Actions at Power Outage:

    1.    Unplug AC Adapter (reasoning = Power Outage was the First Event (? trigger ?) of the bad behavior

    2.    Employ portable emergency lighting

    3.    Report outage to Electric service company

    4.    Go back to sleep

Power Restored at 06:26 CST

My Actions at Power Restoration:

    1.    Plug in AC Adapter

    2.    Make coffee

    3.    Pismo StartUp/Login at ±06:50

    4.    Battery lights dark = same as observed thruout the apparent trickle charge these past days

    5.    XBattery examination results

    1.    Battery level 62%

    2.    Charging = trickle

    3.    Graphs look just like they have for past days (see earlier Grab images)

    6.    I went about checking eMail, etc.

    7.    Noticed Battery light flashing at ±08:20 CST

Results in the Same misbehavior as first reported. = Battery light flashing every ±0.5 seconds

Rapid Battery "Drain" -- I just don't see HOW that can possibly happen in physics

Battery history graphs: seem to show some kind of event about the time of StartUp or shortly after. Grabs taken AFTER ±08:40 CST at intervals

The Event is marked with "?" cursor

LARGE IMAGES can be viewed FULL SCREEN

INDICATOR COLORS - I am still wondering what the "Red" above the graph bounds means - checking with Author

LEVEL

VOLTAGE

AMPERAGE

ACTION PLAN:

    1.    Reset PMU

    2.    Reset Battery

    3.    See what happens AGAIN !!

CCC