[Kickaha]

So I purchased a new PowerBook G4 battery a few months ago, and have had intermittent problems where the computer just turns off out of the blue. No warning, no sleep - it's as if the battery was yanked out unceremoniously - you could hear the hard drive head emergency park. This never happened while plugged in.

So, I called AppleCare. No problem, they send out a new one.

It's older than the one it's replacing.

The presumably bad one is a model A1148, copyright on the label is 2005.

The replacement is a model A1048, copyright on the label is 2004.

The A1048s included the big batch of recalled batteries, although this isn't one of them, according to the serial number. (Not even close.)

Still. WTF?

[billybobsky]

? Sitting around in storage for two years????

[Kickaha]

Yeah... I'm a bit baffled at this one.

So far, so good - it is charging, and not getting overly warm, but... yeesh?

[Is it 1981?]

I'd see if you could get return it for a more recently produced battery. Your one now might be 'new' in the sense it's not been used (which may or may not be true) but after two years, it's certainly not 'new'. You don't know whether or not it's been used before, and it may not last as long because it's a few years old already.

But, you know... if it's working well and getting a 2006 battery is too much hassle, then sod it...

[dfiler]

Perhaps Apple Care replacement parts come from a different warehouse/stock than new orders... ?

[Majost]

My guess: It's a refurb battery. Often, services like Applecare send out refurb parts instead of new ones to save on costs. I would imagine that the innards are relatively new.

[Kickaha]

That's my guess too - so far, so good, no overheating, and it lasted ~4hrs today on one charge.