Heya folks,

Just a quick query about what is 'Normal' behaviour for a charging iBook battery, by normal, I mean simply acceptable, I am sure there is some variation.

My battery died a slow and painful death, but was replaced on warranty at the 10 month mark. If I hadn't had such issues with the first battery, I probably wouldn't be worried. I am curious as to whether the battery was a fall guy for another more complecated problem. This is my first Mac and there are some things that I am unsure about. Two things I just cannot recall from when I first got the beast are:

(1) Does the battery normally stop charging when the computer is switched from off to on? If my iBook is charging whilst it is off, but then I switch it on, the charger indicates that the battery is drawing not charging (i.e., the light goes from orange to green). Once OSX starts up in earnest, the battery starts charging as it was when it was off. This is ok?

(2) Does it normally take 10 minutes for the charger light to go green when the system records the battery as being 100% full? CoconutBattery also indicates that it is at 100%, but it still charges for 10 mins before it is truly full. I did drain the battery to 90% full and did notice that it takes longer and longer to charge 1% the closer it gets to 100%.

I am heading overseas to live very soon and if the DC in-board unit is shot, I’d like to get it fixed before I go. All my mates are PC users, so I can’t do a switch and check!

Here’s a similar mention to point 2, but there was no resolution:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?m...224675&#2224675

Thanks in advance.

You slipped through the radar Robo.
Showing orange and showing 100% charge for 10 minutes is a little strange. Which suggests you should cycle the battery a few times to understand what's happening.
Like, how long does a charge last?
How long does the battery take to charge?
It may be a simple matter of calibration.
As I've suggested in other threads before, download XBattery and you can play to your hearts content. The graphs are the magic.

mutters

Thanks for this info, Mutters.

The battery lasts a good length of time, 4.5 - 5 hours depending on what I am doing with it. It is a brand new battery and it behaves like a good one. It takes about 2.5 (+ or -) to charge to the point where the LED turns green. I have had a bit of a play with XBattery. The battery consistently lasts the same amount of time, it is the way the system responds to charging that worries me.

I have been testing it out some more. It really seems to have a problem when I change its status from shutdown/asleep to awake and on -- if I wake it from sleep whilst it is charging, it stops charging for a few minutes before it realises the battery is not full and gets back to charging. Any ideas? I have reset the PMU. Would problems in the DC in-board manifest like this, or am I barking up the wrong tree? As the battery is new and lasts well, I just don't think the problem is there...

To me, it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong. Battery life seems good. Charging time seems right. Taking time to re-start charging after wake-up is not abnormal.
Let it do a few complete cycles - fully charge - detach chord - use comp until it sleeps -attach chord -fully charge etc.
Make sure you leave XBattery running through all this and you should notice any anomallies. Doing this may extend your battery life.
Oh yeah. Which model iBook? I have a G3 500 which has a similar wake from sleep behaviour.

g'luck
mutters

Thanks for this again, Mutters.
I've an iBook G4 1.33MHz. I great little thing. I am glad for the move from PCs!
I'll monitor a few more cycles and see how it fares!