PowerPC :: Ibook G4 Won't Charge / Shuts Down When Turned On
May 9, 2008
My iBook G4 is 3 years old. I have 2 problems: My latest problem is that it won't charge the battery. I bought a new Ac Adaptor, and I used my battery and my adaptor in another G4 and it charges, but not in my computer. So I know the problem is INSIDE my computer. My father replaced the.DC-inboard when the pin off of my old charger broke off inside the computer.
2.) Now the computer won't turn on. If it does turn on it shuts off 20 seconds later.
There is no warranty, I don't know where to start with fixing it since I can't get it to stay on.!
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Oct 7, 2007
My school-computer (iBook 14" 1,42 Ghz G4, running OSX 10.4.10) has developed some unpleasant habbits lately. With lots of batterycharge left, 28-50%, it shuts down without warning. I try to restart it, and it gets to various stages of booting before shutting down again. It won't run untill i plug in the powercable, and then it starts of from almost half full charge. I did a bit of searching on the forums, and installed coconutbattery with the attached (depressing) result. Tried resetting the pmu, which didn't stop it from shutting down on me again 46 mins later. Does this mean I need to replace the battery?
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Jun 17, 2007
My girl friends iBook 900mhz g3 doesn't want to charge for some reason, has anyone had this problem?
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May 19, 2008
Last month my old charger died (literally, it blew up.), so I got a generic one. It worked for a while then it wouldn't charge. Basically it would charge for a second then stop, after about 5 minutes of crapping about with it it would stay charging. Then like a week later it stopped doing this and with the generic charger it'd charge when plugged in right away, no fights. Now today it decides to do it again, BUT it won't charge no matter how long I jiggle the wire around etc.
Would this be the DC board? I don't want to buy another charger finding out it's the DC board, or vice versa.. If it is the DC board, does anyone have a link to a site to show how to install a new one? If it's a big hassle, I might see if theres an apple shop around town. Also: It does this with the battery out as well, so it's not the battery.
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Sep 13, 2008
hi little problem today my ibook just turned striaght off while i was browsing the net. it went straight off no shutdown no warning , had to remove the battery and charger then wait couple minutes before it turned on again,
i wasnt doin anything stressful to the laptop i hadnt installed anny apps or anything just browsing the net and it went off any ideas?? is it showing signs of breaking down?
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May 28, 2007
Two days ago my iBook G4 (about 18 months old) has started to shut down instead of sleeping when I close it or when I select "Sleep" from the menu.
Strangely enough, it seems to only happen when I have iTunes open before I try to put the computer to sleep.
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Jul 24, 2008
I have this iBook G4 and the wierdest thing is happening. When it is on and you bump it or move it a little it just shuts off like a hard shut down. Has anyone else out there heard of this problem or does anyone know how to fix it?
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Aug 2, 2009
This is about another Mac Laptop.
It is an Ibook G4 1.42 Mhz. It will run well when plugged in. Though when on battery it will just shut down ever so often. Like every 30 minutes and then more often after that.
I was thinking low battery or bad battery. But I put in a new battery and then it did it still?????
What ideas do you have for this??
I did a test on the battery and I do know it is pretty bad. But I do also know I tested this book with a new batter and it still abruptly shuts off completely.
When I sign back on the clock has to be reset each time.
Besides that.. Everything is good.
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Dec 26, 2009
my daughter bought a used ibook g4 15" and it worked for several months before developing a maddening habit of shutting down without warning. I've read other threads about this with ibooks but they say it happens only when the battery is operating and doesn't happen when plugged in. My daughter's does it either way and will only stay on for ten or so minutes most times before shutting down. It makes the machine unusable. We've checked the power supply and the power input board. Is this a logic board issue? She paid $450 for the computer but the prices have come down and it might not be worth fixing. I can solder and can get into the logic board if someone can tell me what to do.
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May 25, 2010
I have an ibook G4 14" 1.42ghz.I have it plugged into a power adapter almost always. It has been plugged in in both instances/I recently put it to sleep and when I return anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple hours it is shut down. I have a heck of a time getting it to power on. It took me several times, anywhere from 3-6 times to get it to turn on.
When I turn it on it goes through the usual loading procedures and after loading a window pops up saying the date and time are wrong and could cause applications to act erratically. The date ends up being 1969 and sometimes the time is wrong.
I have fixed the date and it still happens.
I don't know if this has affected or led to this but my battery has been shot for a couple months now and occasionally (probably 1-2 times a day) the power adapter (a cheap copy of apple's) would become unplugged from the laptop prompting the message stating you are on reserve battery and that the computer will go to sleep soon.
Does anyone know what is causing this? How much would it cost to fix it?
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Mar 14, 2007
My iBook G3 800 MHz will not charge any more all of a sudden. I have tried plugging it in to several power sockets and it won't charge. Whats more... I tried charging it with just the normal charger, and I even tried charing it with the extension wire! I am not sure if it is the charger, or my iBook. If it is the iBook, should i rip it open and get a new part for it? If it is the charger, where can i get a new one?
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Jan 3, 2008
It ran fine off of a battery, but won't charge. I replaced the DC board and the power adapter, but it still won't run or charge off the battery. I think the original power adapter was bad and ruined the original DC board and the new one. I'm going to try one more DC board and if it doesn't work then give up the parts on eBay. Problem is, I need the data off the hard drive. Is there anyone in the Kansas City area who has an iBook 14" 1.42 GHz and would would be willing to charge the batteries for me? I wonder if the Apple Store might do this? This way, I can turn on the iBook and copy the data to another machine.
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Mar 8, 2008
I have an iBook g3 running Tiger that I bought second hand almost two years ago that has been working perfectly up until yesterday. I use it for uni during the day and usually turn the machine off overnight while it charges. The other night I left it 'asleep' while charging instead of off. When I came to use it in the morning it would not wake up and was totally silent although it's pulsing 'on' light in the front part of the casing was on. The charging cable was still connected and was green, indicating a full charge, but the battery-life light display, when pressed, showed only a single light, which flashds a few times, indicating the battery wasn't fully charged.
While trying to get the thing to do something I removed the battery. This caused the ibook to turn off the pulsating light - it was completely off and apparently not drawing power from it's adapter, which was still plugged in. I have been trying since then to get the computer to turn on. No matter how long it is left charging, the battery never indicates anything other than a single light with a few flashes, the computer will not turn on and the cable of the charger stays green when plugged in. I have tried inserting an older battery - which I know worked, it just only used to hold an hour's charge or so - and it will not charge at all. I have also tried resetting the PMU, which appears to have done nothing
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Mar 14, 2009
I just tried to charge my iBook, and it won't charge. If I unplug the charger from the mains socket, and plug it back in, the ring around the charger will turn green for about a second and then turn off. I've tried to restart the iBook, and I've removed the battery from it also.
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Nov 25, 2005
I have done all those PMU resetting stuff. The problem is that my iBook (1GHz, 768MB RAM, Tiger 10.4.3) keeps shutting off when I run it on battery. While plugged in there doesn't seem to be a problem. Here's what I've found out: This seems to happen only when I run the iBook from the battery. There is no pattern as to when it will happen: It might be fully charged, at 70%, 50%, etc. There are no warnings: The iBook just dies
To restart it I have to plug in the charger, I can't start it from the battery after one of these sudden deaths
If I press the battery indicator after a crash, it doesn't show any charge - no green lights
When I restart the machine the battery indicator will work, and it show's a charge in Tiger as well
I've done all that PMU resetting, PRAM resetting, etc. Doesn't work. Any ideas as to what this could be? Bad battery?
One more thing: I've run the hardware test, and it doesn't come up with anything at all.
Coconut Battery shows that my battery should hold a charge as well. Max charge is still at 3500mAh, 18 months and 750 cycles after I got the iBook.
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Nov 27, 2006
My wife has a three-year old iBook G4 and yesterday while she was doing some work, the screen just went black. By the time she brought it to me the machine was shut down. I hit the power button and it started to boot up, but about five seconds later it shut itself down again.
I kept playing with it and I was able to get back in to OS X and I played with it for a few minutes and all seemed fine. I then shut the screen and put it to sleep, then when I tried to wake it back up it shut itself down once again.
After a few more tries of getting it back in to the OS I was able to get all her files off the hard drive, but the problem is still there.
My guess is that it's the logic board, but that's just a guess.
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Oct 27, 2007
I recently purchased an iBook used from someone locally. I got a good price because he said the battery was weak. However, I want to make sure that's actually the case. The power cord connection is not loose.
Coconutbattery says my battery is 36% health, but it also says it's not plugged into the charger when it actually is, so I don't know how reliable this program is. It says my mac is 27 months old, i have 367 cycles on the battery... etc. And I am running Tiger.
The problem is that the power meter on the top bar will say i've got a full charge... so I run the computer (on battery) down to about 60% according to the meter, but the computer instantly shuts off. I try to reboot, and it shuts off while rebooting. It's like the battery works fine and suddenly dies. I get about 30-40 minutes use out of the battery.
Is this the battery or do I have other problems? This only happens when using the battery.
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Nov 5, 2007
I was hoping you could get me started in the right direction. My wife has an iBook G4 which lately, while using a full battery, just turns off suddenly. There is no warning and it never does it when it's plugged in. The battery looks like it's almost fully charged - at least that's what the meter in the menu says, so I don't know what's going on.
Could you possibly give me some steps to go through to try and figure this out?
The first step she wants to try is to get a new Intel MacBook, but I'd like to try a couple of other things first!
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May 6, 2010
I was given an old ibook G4, with a borken hard drive.
since it would boot from a firewire drive on mac os X 10.4 ppc, I decided to change the hard drive, which i had never doe for a laptop. I had a very similar 40 Gig toshiba IDE drive from an old laptop, opened the ibook and changed the drive.
everything works, the mac boots fine, sound, video etc, yet I realised that it had one rather serious issue. It shuts down when moved / tapped, even very lightly, and this is problematic for a laptop. I was considering buying an airport extreme for it, but now I'm afraid this might not be mendable, nd i'm reconsidering.
what could be wrong ? is there somekind of shock sensor that could have been damaged ? I put back all the screws, and only changed the drive and proceeded cautiously, but maybe something was damaged- what could be causing this, is there a specific area I should focus on ?
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Feb 7, 2007
I have a 1.2 Ghz Power PC Ibook that has been a flawless laptop for almost two years now. Yesterday, I noticed that the screen wold periodically dim/brighten every couple of seconds. As I looked at the battery icon, I noticed that each time it dimmed, the charge icon would switch to a battery (as if the laptop wasn't plugged in), and each time it brightened, the corresponding charge icon would appear.
This happens even though it is plugged in, and usually, if I adjust the power cord, then it stops. But each time I have had to do this, it becomes less responsive to the method! Now I'm afraid my computer will simply die a slow death, with me frantically jiggling a cord to no avail, watching as it breathes its last breath, unable to be repowered!
PS: I'm an American, in Germany, who will be in London next week and able to visit a genius bar there...but I'm not positive that my warrranty extends beyond American borders.
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Sep 18, 2007
I just bought a 74w NewerTech battery about 3 weeks ago but I don't think that is the problem....
I can run my iBook off of the AC adapter fine but when I unplug it it automatically shuts off as if there is no battery in it.
It shows that the battery is charging and everything in the menubar but when I unplug it, it will shut off. This just happened today and earlier today I was working on it with the battery working fine.
I also switched out to the old stock battery and it does the same thing.
I think it has to be hardware related. I have reset the PMU and PRAM/NVRAM and it didn't help. Also when I started the computer back up it said that my clock was reset. Feedback is much appreciated.
iBook G4 14" Mac OS X (10.4.10) NewerTech 74w Battery, 1.5gb ram
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Jan 21, 2008
My adapter caught on fire, and I had to put it out. When I tried to charge my battery with a new adapter, it would not charge. I got another battery, (old one from a friend), that apparently had some juice left on it. The computer turned on no problem, and I used it for about 20 minutes when I noticed that the battery was slowly dying, and that it would not charge again. Now, its dead again. It will not charge. Does this sound like a logic board problem? Who can I contact?
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Dec 6, 2008
I have a question on the charge indicator on my wife's G4. Her DC in-board was acting flaky where it would alternate between charging and not charging every 5 minutes. I searched the internet and determined it was the DC in-board and I bought the part and swapped it out myself. I just replaced that in her laptop and it now doesn't do that but I do have another question on the expected G4 behavior. When the battery is running low with the lid open and I plug in the power cord it will turn orange to indicate it is charging If I close the lid it stays orange and goes to sleep as expected. But if I then open the lid it will turn green for a couple minutes and then go to orange.
Shouldn't it stay orange the whole time no matter if I take it out of sleep mode or not? My Macbook Pro stays orange once it is charging and doesn't stop until it is fully charged. The reason it concerns me is I just replaced the battery on her laptop after the DC in-board issues described above. The constant charge/no charge made her battery only hold a 20 minute charge. It seems switching from charge to no-charge for the couple minutes after waking up would mess with the battery as well. I reset her Power Management Unit thinking that would clear things up maybe and had no effect. Can someone confirm if her computer if behaving as it should.
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Jan 23, 2010
I've had my iBook G4 for about 4 years now. I replaced the battery two years ago and have had to replace the charger twice. My current charger, which I bought rather cheaply on ebay, will only charge the battery when my computer is shut down or sleeping.
This makes it very difficult to work as my current battery is losing charge quickly and plugging it in is of no use when I am using it.
Is there anything I can do to change this? Or do I need a new battery?
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Feb 25, 2007
I was wondering if anyone would be able to help me or if anyone is having the same problem as me... Since 16th Feb I have not been able to charge my ibook in sleep mode. Every time you put the ibook into sleep mode while the power cable is connected the ibook goes to sleep for a second or so and then wakes up again... If the screen is shut it just continuously keeps repeating the process...
I would be very grateful if anyone could advice me on what to do or recommend any diagnostic checks i should do to rectify the problem...
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Sep 25, 2007
well it does charge just not how it should. when i plug the ibook into the power adapter usually nothing happens. i have to jiggle the plug in just the right way to get it to charge and this involves putting pressure on it in some direction. it has gotten worse so now i have to have constant pressure on it for it to charge. i have tried 2 different chargers so i know its not that. i was thinking maybe the DC board but i was not sure.
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Mar 3, 2009
i made my own power supply wall plugin cable for my ibook g3 power adapter. Its from a printer, computer boots fine, but with only one problem it wont charge the battery is this because i only have the two prongs connected to power while the weird silver circle doesnt have any power"
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Jul 5, 2010
I have an old G3 iBook 500 and it was fine last week but I didnt use it for a week (it has 10.2.8 and 9.2) but now I went to use it and the battery was on its last dot and it was sleeping. I tried to charge it and the light never came on the charger and its not charging. Now its dead cuz the battery went flat. its not the original charger its the newer square
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Jul 26, 2008
Purchased this notebook used, but very nicely cared for, excellent condition. I ran the Apple Hardware Test and everything passed including the logic board.
The battery has 500+cycles. The problem is laptop shuts down at 50% or less of battery. Clock is wrong at startup but is correct a few seconds later.
Runs forever and very nicely on ac power.
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Jan 11, 2010
My iBook G4 crashed on me one night, and the only way I could turn it on again was to unplug the power cord from my computer, turn it over, remove the battery, put the battery back in, plug the cord back into the computer, hold down the start button, and it would restart. Although, when it restarted, the fan would go on first, and then the computer would make the normal start sound. Some times the finder would be on the screen after I restarted it displaying a quick link icon of the hard drive. So after a few weeks, it did it again, then a few days, and then it got to the point where I had to keep my computer in the same position otherwise it might shut down.
Now, if the power cord is green everything is fine, but if I move my computer and bump the cord into the wrong place it turns from green to bright red, makes an evil buzzing sound, and in three seconds the computer shuts off and I have to restart by using the method above. If or when the power cord goes bright red I do have 3 seconds to pull out the cord before it shuts down. I then sleep the computer, put the cord back into the computer, and move the cord around until it is green again.
I took my computer to a mac genius, and when he looked at the crash report he said it was frequent, but not caused by the battery and couldn't tell me what was the exact problem. I bought a brand new power cord, but I still couldn't move the computer around to much or it would shut down.
1.) Has anyone ever heard of this happening? And if so, what causes it to be so touchy?
2.) What can I do to fix it myself?
3.) If I send it in, will they be able to fix it so that it is perfect again without having to spend more than the money assessed?
I would like to try to have it fixed. At this juncture, my only option is to send it in for $280 and hope they can fix the problem that no one seems to know what is the exact problem, or even where the problem stems from. I should add here that the battery is fully charged, and the report says it can hold about 1 hour of life, although it's more like 30 minutes, and then without warning to plug in or risk shutting down (like it used to give me) it will shut down.
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