Yikes!

We arrived safely, with very smooth travel connections (apart from Pippa’s smoothie, erm, disagreeing with her in a near-projectile manner; all well after it departed).

But my iBook battery isn’t charging, so I’ll only be online in dribs and drabs for the time being. I tried resetting the PMU with a restart-hold-down-the-power-button maneuver; if someone has a better idea, please leave a comment (iBook G4 2004, running 10.4.2, battery doesn’t charge although the cord checks out and it seems to be operating fine while plugged in — just not charging the battery). Everything was working fine till I installed the World of Warcraft game, Joi. . . .

8 thoughts on “Yikes!

  1. Oh — projectile travel vomit, that is so … unfortunate. I had the good fortune to have never experienced that. Mrs. Ref, on the other hand . . .

  2. Hey, I’m just glad she missed my ear; a second before, she’d been whispering to me. We cam that close to a truly unforgettable departure.

    Nick, it recognizes the battery but observes that the “AC adapter cannot charge battery: Yes”

  3. That’s oddly astute of it… I don’t mean to doubt your techincal prowess, but are you sure you followed these instructions for reseting the PMU? For the record, I came across the instructions below looking for a way to save my ibook’s battery from physics.

    From the apple knowledge base or whatever it’s named:

    1. If the computer is on, turn it off.

    2. Reset the power manager by simultaneously pressing and then releasing Shift-Control-Option-Power on the keyboard. Do not press the fn (Function) key while using this combination of keystrokes.

    3. Wait 5 seconds.

    4. Press the Power button to restart the iBook computer.

    Note to self: Do not consume questionable smoothies around loved ones or hygienically inclined strangers.

  4. Nick, I had tried to reset the PMU by a different method (on the Apple page for battery problems); neither that suggestion nor the one you describe here made a difference. I’ll try to boot into Open Firmware to reset, and see if that helps — but I’m moer or less sure that it’s a problem in the hardware.

  5. Have you tried moving the battery to another iBook to see if the problem follows it?

  6. Hi,

    I found this blog entry on your iBook battery recharge problem on a Google search. I am having the exact same issue with my 2004 iBook G4. Problem just started in last week. Diagnostics show battery is fine. I have tried a different battery and different power supply with no resolution. I also believe it to be a hardware problem and System Profiler gives me the “AC Adapter cannot charge battery : Yes” message. I have reset PMU multiple times – no help. Were you ever able to resolve your problem? Thanks,

    Mark Lee

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