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PowerBook Charging Problems


If your PowerBook isn’t charging correctly, you’re not alone. Power-related problems are becoming widespread among PowerBook owners:

Apple has good and responsible people monitoring [the TIL] page. Over the last few weeks, there have been many posts about charging problems on PB G3’s, in all three versions. I fixed mine (temporarily) by playing with the AC-adapter (in out, in out) and [resetting] the power manager many times.

The problem can have several causes, the most documented being the shielding just inside the opening for the AC-adapter (my apple qualified engineer showed me the inside of my machine, I have seen the shielding, it can become unglued very easily). Put some masking tape around the outside of the adapter plug, if the shielding is the problem, this will fix it unless the board has been shorted by the shielding problem.. There is no danger in doing this according to me.

Apple must now, yes now, address the charging issue on all PB g3’s. I have seen the tip of the iceberg on this page and on the newsgroup comp.sys.mac.portables.

Having read so many of the complaints, my impression (nothing more than this) is that the problem is software (the system itself) related, or the power manager itself which is a chip on the board that can be reset and that would appear to be far too fragile.

Searching the TIL for this problem returns many, many posts on this topic. The problem is not uncommon, and Apple is aware of it. Perhaps Apple should release an official statement about the problem, so that the many people who don’t read the PowerBook tech support boards won’t be caught off guard when this battery problem strikes their machines.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.