[Ti] Overly-modest TiBook battery

[Kynan Shook]

I concur with Dave; the battery is toast.
Lithium Ion batteries generally have a life of 2-3 years, depending on 
how much it is used (charge/discharge cycles don't matter as much as 
the number of electrons that flow in and out, and the amount of time 
that passes).  You're luckier than most people; most batteries when 
aging (of the 50 or 100 or so that I've had to replace and/or diagnose) 
tend to put the computer to sleep before they reach 0% charge; I've 
seen a few that are so bad they go to sleep with the percentage around 
80 or 90 or higher.  They then show 0% as normal when you plug it in 
and charge.  As far as I know, there's no external user-accessible way 
to tell the battery to rethink its capacity.

For most people, I would recommend purchasing one battery at a time and 
using it until it is dead, unless you have some dire need for more; for 
example, if you fly across the Atlantic frequently, and for some reason 
there aren't any power ports available.  Otherwise, the vast majority 
of people usually have some opportunity to charge up during the day.

Bob Jacobsen <Bob_Jacobsen at lbl.gov> writes:
> I have a TiBook 400MHz and three batteries.  The original battery
> recently developed a problem with its idea of how much charge it
> contains.  When charged, it shows 100%.  That drops to zero in about
> 20 minutes, giving the usual low-battery warning, etc.  But I can run
> at 0% for an hour or more!
>
> It seems that the battery is holding energy just fine, but that the
> estimation  of how much is left is really off.
>
> I'd like to get this fixed because once the battery is showing zero,
> the computer won't wake from sleep.
>
> The other two batteries, which are significantly younger, are working 
> fine.
>
> I've tried Apple's recommendation for "recalibrating" the battery by
> letting it run down until the computer goes to sleep automatically.
> (I acutally do this pretty often).  That seems to have no effect.