[X4U] Battery Capacity Question

[Randy B.Singer]

Lee Licata said:

>So, is there consensus as to how long I should expect this battery to  
>last, at what point should it be replaced?
>
>As a non-scientific point of reference, when sitting on the couch  
>wirelessly retrieving my mail, surfing the web, etc, etc, I seem to  
>get just over 2.25 hours from the battery....


That sounds about normal.

What I recommend is that you download:

X-Charge (free)
http://www.pol-online.net/index.php?page=freeware

and use it to graph your battery's performance per charge.

Then I recommend that you run your PowerBook until it goes to sleep 
without putting it on the charger, and then fully recharge it, and repeat 
this three or four times.

Each time that you run your PowerBook on the battery, run X-Charge and 
note its runtime and performance.

I suspect that after the third or fourth time that you cycle the battery 
that you will see as close to optimum performance as you can expect.

I just did this with a 12-inch PowerBook G4 and picked up about an extra 
45 minutes of battery performance per charge.  (It had been reaching 50% 
charge and then it would drop off to nothing and go to sleep.)

Please let us know what your results are.



Randy B. Singer
Co-Author of: The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions)

Routine OS X Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html