Powerbook G4 Battery shuts down without signaling low battery

Hello,
<Edited by Moderator>
Okay, so we'll get a new battery, but please answer why do all of the battery test lights light up after the battery has been sitting idle, outside of the computer, for 10 hours?
We have three external hard drives and a lot of programs running. We have reset the PMU many times. Plus, we have a strange clicking noise coming from around the hard drive, which we associate with a power problem in this old house, and all of our battery problems date to when we first plugged in in this house. Resetting the PMU stops or reduces the noise for a while; then it starts again. A UPS backup has helped to keep the noise lower than before, however, the battery problem persists. By the way, the house voltage remains wonderfully steady between 230 and 234.
I'd write and edit more, but this typing delay in the reply screen and the constant jumping around of the edit window are much too frustrating. (IE8 -- which has been fine until now -- on different computer.)
Thanks in advance. Would happily reciprocate for a carefully constructed response.
Message was edited by: Netzy

Thanks for posting this under an active subject.
The internal hard drive is listed as verified. The three external drives are not listed as verified. Although, I did just run a verification on them, and there were no problems found.
The battery drains toward 0 percent, only when the external Lacies are connected. (a 500gb Big Extreme, a normal sized 500gb and a 250 gb the same size). Without the external hard drives connected, the battery does not drain. They are daisy chained on a FW800 port, as they have been many, many times before.
I think that we have updated everything possible to update. We do have DivX and on2flix standard installed. Otherwise, we try to stay away from 3rd party software.
Here are the running processes, in case that should help. It has been running slowly from time to time. I'm still in the early stages of the Mac learning curve, so I could imagine missing the obvious.
Processes: 52 total, 2 running, 50 sleeping... 168 threads 11:02:38
Load Avg: 0.75, 0.55, 0.52 CPU usage: 4.6% user, 11.0% sys, 84.4% idle
SharedLibs: num = 12, resident = 3.97M code, 272K data, 1.30M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 10167, resident = 152M + 20.1M private, 155M shared
PhysMem: 168M wired, 160M active, 318M inactive, 647M used, 1.37G free
VM: 6.83G + 6.86M 172065(0) pageins, 271814(0) pageouts
PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE
536 top 7.7% 0:10.04 1 18 22 1.98M 440K 2.43M 27.0M
535 tcsh 0.0% 0:00.04 1 15 20 404K 696K 916K 31.1M
534 login 0.0% 0:00.02 1 16 36 148K 456K 608K 26.9M
531 Final Cut 1.3% 0:14.03 4 171 666 47.1M 55.3M 62.7M 952M
523 mdimport 0.0% 0:00.27 4 61 50 872K 3.36M 2.91M 42.8M
517 Terminal 0.9% 0:07.40 5 97 144 2.42M 15.3M 11.6M 240M
492 DiskManage 0.0% 0:00.91 1 42 55 708K 2.39M 2.11M 40.0M
491 Disk Utili 0.0% 0:04.90 4 178 200 3.76M 15.8M 10.8M 243M
462 lookupd 0.0% 0:00.54 2 34 37 436K 1.00M 836K 28.5M
426 Safari 0.0% 0:03.15 6 119 208 8.89M 16.1M 10.2M 274M
421 Microsoft 0.0% 0:02.07 1 76 118 2.06M 6.24M 5.13M 218M
420 Microsoft 1.3% 2:18.81 4 175 373 22.0M 35.4M 47.1M 369M
253 QuickTime 0.0% 4:40.69 4 195 286 2.70M 19.9M 5.79M 282M
242 Mail 0.0% 1:00.00 6 156 337 14.5M 11.9M 11.0M 319M
236 AppleSpell 0.0% 0:00.47 1 45 39 464K 1.98M 340K 39.6M
219 automount 0.0% 0:00.07 3 41 29 220K 940K 324K 28.7M
209 automount 0.0% 0:00.07 3 42 33 216K 956K 372K 29.0M
201 ntpd 0.0% 0:05.12 1 11 18 92K 488K 160K 27.1M
197 rpc.lockd 0.0% 0:00.00 1 10 18 0K 352K 8K 26.7M
193 mds 0.0% 0:08.13 8 98 129 4.69M 3.20M 4.86M 49.0M
183 nfsiod 0.0% 0:00.00 5 30 25 0K 352K 8K 28.6M
150 cupsd 0.0% 0:00.59 2 27 30 272K 1.46M 280K 30.1M
146 hpusbmond 0.0% 0:00.48 1 17 29 60K 1.40M 184K 28.6M
116 crashrepor 0.0% 0:00.00 1 34 20 88K 376K 152K 27.1M
111 UniversalA 0.0% 1:36.16 1 64 102 984K 4.02M 1.24M 222M
110 HP IO Clas 0.2% 0:56.65 1 54 87 296K 1.73M 476K 207M
97 Finder 0.0% 0:29.49 3 157 266 4.88M 20.3M 8.86M 251M
96 SystemUISe 0.0% 0:14.01 4 240 271 5.40M 13.5M 9.16M 249M
95 Dock 0.0% 0:06.31 2 112 202 1.41M 10.9M 4.36M 233M
89 pbs 0.0% 0:00.52 2 40 47 512K 3.32M 364K 57.7M
76 loginwindo 0.0% 0:03.18 3 132 111 800K 4.29M 1.49M 221M
75 ATSServer 0.0% 0:03.48 2 83 100 756K 6.22M 1.90M 76.9M
61 coreservic 0.0% 0:02.53 3 108 197 1.27M 16.0M 5.79M 43.1M
59 blued 0.0% 0:00.59 1 60 34 348K 2.15M 732K 39.2M
58 WindowServ 0.8% 11:58.50 2 335 1177 5.77M+ 72.4M 66.8M+ 289M+
55 distnoted 0.0% 0:00.77 1 48 20 220K 776K 276K 27.0M
51 update 0.0% 1:11.13 1 14 18 52K 360K 124K 26.6M
47 DirectoryS 0.0% 0:01.00 4 65 43 584K 1.97M 964K 32.2M
44 securityd 0.0% 0:00.54 1 112 26 440K 1.19M 624K 28.5M
43 notifyd 0.0% 0:00.37 2 67 21 116K 400K 180K 27.2M
42 memberd 0.0% 0:00.05 3 22 24 176K 400K 224K 27.7M
41 diskarbitr 0.0% 0:01.45 1 164 22 464K 896K 664K 27.1M
40 coreaudiod 0.0% 0:01.06 1 102 81 548K 2.25M 732K 36.2M
39 configd 0.0% 0:11.13 3 181 65 560K 1.39M 1.21M 29.6M
36 syslogd 0.0% 0:01.24 1 15 19 96K 384K 148K 26.6M
35 netinfod 0.0% 0:01.15 1 14 22 144K 500K 264K 26.9M
34 mDNSRespon 0.0% 0:01.52 2 32 24 240K 1.00M 512K 27.4M
33 KernelEven 0.0% 0:00.07 2 22 22 104K 392K 116K 27.2M
28 kextd 0.0% 0:03.23 2 19 21 620K 816K 612K 27.6M
24 dynamic_pa 0.0% 0:01.39 1 12 19 60K 372K 132K 26.6M
1 launchd 0.0% 0:00.53 3 234 21 192K 428K 268K 27.7M
0 kernel_tas 0.5% 8:46.92 45 2 4183 32.1M 0K 136M 1.21G

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stevenray1 wrote:
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http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=274
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[img=http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/1456/coconut6qd.th.jpg]
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Gil,
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
"When I charge the ring is always green, never amber."
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Blackbook C2D Mac OS X (10.4.9) 120Gig, 1Gig, Superdrive.

2006 Macbook running 10.6.8 shuts down without warning

It's a 2006 Macbook (I bought new in 06) running os x 10.6.8. Up until 6 months ago no problems what so ever with the computer. I would be working and every once in a while, it would just shut down. Replaced the battery less than a year ago. Power supply (60w charger) had a short, so I replaced that about a week ago. Computer is still shutting down without warning. I did the 1.1 update on the OSX but it still acts up. I'm lucky to be able to use the computer right now (it's been running for 20 minutes...this time). Would it help if I upgraded to LION, or would it still do it then? Any help please...I'm a musician and it's my livelyhood.
Thanks,
David

When a Mac shuts down without warning, it's doubtful an upgrade will be the fix. You need to find out what's causing the problem.
Check the startup disk.
Launch Disk Utility located in HD > Applications > Utillities
Select the startup disk on the left then select the First Aid tab.
Click: Verify Disk (not Verify Disk Permissions)
If Disk Utility reports errors, restart the Mac while inserting the install disc and holding down the C key simultaneously. From there you should be able to repair the startup disk.
No errors were found, run the Apple Hardware Test > Using Apple Hardware Test
If installed, anti virus software can cause system anomalies such as an unexpected shut down.

PB G4 Shuts Down without warning

Hi everyone,
Recently I have noticed that my PB G4 (1.5 Ghz with OS 10.4.11) will randomly shut down without warning. The battery bar on the top right of my screen will not be in the red zone when this happens. I have also noticed that when I do reboot my laptop that I get a warning that my Date and Time are set to before 2001 which apparently will screw things up. But when I check them, they are set to today's date.
Can anyone help me please?
Thanks in advance,
Bettina

Hi, bettina. Before replacing your clock battery, test it as described in this article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30017
This may confirm that it's bad, or may encourage you to focus on finding the problem elsewhere.
What suggests that the battery is bad is the fact that your clock is wrong at startup. If your Date & Time options include obtaining the correct time from a network time server and your computer is connected to the internet all the time, that explains why the clock is reset to the correct time very soon after starting up.

MacBook shuts down without warning

My MacBook is a couple years old and the battery might need replacing, but after about an hour of use - many times less than an hour - the computer just shuts downs without any warning at all. Is this a battery problem or a OS problem?

Thanks Lyssa,
You've actually suggested solutions on this same problem, but since they did not work, I thought I coming at it from another angle it might help.
Battery Information:
Model Information:
Serial Number: DP-ASMB013-3526-3e9
Manufacturer: DP
Device name: ASMB013
Pack Lot Code: 0001
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0102
Hardware Revision: 0300
Cell Revision: 0100
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4116
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4571
Health Information:
Cycle count: 154
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1539
Voltage (mV): 11133
System Power Settings:
AC Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 20
Automatic Restart On Power Loss: No
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Wake On LAN: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
Battery Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 15
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 5
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
Reduce Brightness: Yes
Hardware Configuration:
UPS Installed: No
AC Charger Information:
Connected: No
Charging: No

Powerbook G4 Battery shuts down without signaling low battery

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