iBook G4 12" losing date and time

[jlyttle]

I guess that this model does not have a PRAM battery, this info is maintained by the main battery. My problem is this: after turning the machine on if hat has been off for a while, the date and tome revert back to 1970. The actual power of the battery is fine, it holds a charge and will operate the laptop for quite a while, so I don't understand how these settings are being lost or where to look to fix it. Everything else with the unit seems to be fine. Any help would be greatly apprciated.

-Justin

[sinclair_tm]

all computers have a pram battery, just to store that info, even laptops. or else it would lose the info when you switch your batteries around on a trip, and what a pain that would be. so it sounds like you need to visit an apple repair place and have then get the pram batter replaced.

[jlyttle]

Yeah that's what I thought too, but I found info in several places that warn that this model will lose date/time if you are slow in swapping batteries, you have maybe 15-20 seconds. So, the problem lies elsewhere.

[mdnky]

You're right, iBooks don't have a PRAM battery. You have about 20 seconds to switch batteries before you loose your settings. On a side note, here's a list of batteries and their part numbers from the Apple Support site.

Try resetting your PRAM, if that doesn't work try resetting the PMU.

[sinclair_tm]

wow, thats weird, so how long have they not been putting pram batteries in these things?

[JoshT]

Originally Posted by sinclair_tm

wow, thats weird, so how long have they not been putting pram batteries in these things?

The iBooks have never had backup batteries. All powerbooks starting with the titanium ones have had backup batteries but I dunno about anything before then.

For the original poster of this thread, if your battery holds a charge just fine but the date/time is still reset EVERY time you restart your computer then you have a corrupt PMU. You can reset the PMU but you simply must be very careful. If you do it wrong (or do it more than one time without starting up) then you will permanently corrupt the PMU and your software problem would turn into a hardware one that will cost you $$$. Here are instructions for doing PMU reset: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449

After you do the PMU reset and start up your computer the date/time will definitely be reset. Normally that is how you'd know that you really did do a PMU reset correctly. So just restart your computer as normal and if the date/time are still wrong then your PMU is corrupt beyond what resetting it can do. You now either have to live with the issue (perhaps by turning on the option to set date/time with a time server) or take the computer to an AASP.