Webthoughts

I have a PowerBook G3/400 (Pismo, Rev. B--one of the last ones produced, it appears). As the machine is now over two years old, its battery-life is not what it once was. At best, I've been getting about 1:15 out of the battery, but usually only an hour on average.

I've tried many different things to try to revive the battery. Many of the standard tricks that have apparently worked for other don't seem to work here (resetting the machine's PMU, discharging the battery, etc.). And really, I've been resigned to that. I use the PowerBook while plugged in most of the time anyway.

The other day (Friday), however, I was using the PowerBook on the battery. Something came up and I closed the lid, as I usually do, to put the PowerBook to sleep. One thing led to another and I ended up not touching the PowerBook again for the remainder of the weekend. I had never plugged it in after putting it to sleep, so it remained sleeping during that time. As I recall, the computer was estimating only fifteen minutes or so of life left in the battery when I put it to sleep.

Monday afternoon rolled around and I opened the PowerBook up. I noticed that the computer had shut down, presumably because, even though it was sleeping, the PowerBook had drained what remained in the battery enough that it couldn't even support sleeping anymore. So, I plugged the computer back in and let the battery recharge.

Imagine my surprise when I started the computer up later and saw that the computer was estimating 2:45 left in the battery! Wow. An hour-and-a-half improvement is nothing to scoff at. I decided to test that estimate and found that, indeed, something had changed because the computer put itself to sleep after 2:27. Not the original estimate, but a definite improvement nonetheless!

Not being knowledgeable in any way, shape or form about anything relating to batteries, I couldn't tell you why the difference. I'm just happy the battery has regained much of it's original usable life. I'm interested in seeing how long this lasts!