g4 powerbook battery help request...

A friend's 15" 1.33ghz G4 powerbook is having battery problems. Her old battery had understandably lost some life but still worked fine. Then she had to turn it in for their battery recall program. The new one worked perfectly for 5 months. One day it just discharged down to 0% (sleep mode too long) and now it REFUSES to charge. The light goes orange for a bit then back to green. It recognizes there is a battery in the computer, but it says it has 0%. The battery is too dead to light up anything when you press the button on the battery. I've tried reading the voltage from the output pins on the battery, but I can't find anywhere what pins are supposed to be what. Everything registers 0...Which says to me, this battery is too drained to even charge. I want to hook it up to a dumb lithium ion charger and just give it SOME juice for a few minutes then put it back in the powerbook to see if it charges...Sometimes batteries get too dead to charge correctly....But can someone give me their opinion abou this or he pin layout on the battery of what is ground, positive, etc....? PLEASE

 

batteries sometimes die like this..though it's rare. You should be able to send it back for replacement.. why haven't you yet? I searched for the pin out.. couldn't find it.

 

Her powerbook is out of warranty. She tried to call apple to talk to them about it, but they told her the battery has the same warranty as the computer despite that it is a BRAND NEW replacement from the recall. They proceeded to tell her she could talk to a tech person for $50.00.

 

Oh, you mean your replacement is seen by apple as being more than 5 months old? I mean, I thought that a replacement would come with a new 1 year warranty since it was apples fault you needed to replace it anyways. Batteries aren't covered under the normal warranty so it wouldn't matter if the Powerbook was out or not. I think they're hosing you and you should call them again, or call an authorized repair center for advice. You can call tekserve in NYC as one example.. They've always given us great service in the past. 50 dollars for an apple tech is retarded.. that's nearly half the cost of a new battery. Apple's smokin the drapes

 

You better off just buying a new battery

 

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800006&tstart=0
I wanted to post this.. In apple discussions many other people have had problems with replacement recalled batteries.. and have gotten them replaced by apple.. though sometimes they had to insist. I wouldn't spend $129 before putting up a fight. Apple owes you a new battery, plain and simple. If you were wondering what a tech would say.. it's also here.. saved you 50 bucks.. check the pmu, reset the pram, run the diagnostic..that's it. If nothing works try the battery in another powerbook, possible? If the battery works.. you could have a dead dc-board, etc etc. Still I would check as much as you can..and press apple for another battery.

press apple.. heh .. makin cider

 

It does sound like your friend received a dud of a replacement. It's definitely worth trying to see if they will help you out or not before shelling out more to replace a defective battery that they sent to you.