Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.2.8: Apple may provide new batteries to some users; AirPort Base Station problems; more

Apple may provide new batteries to some users We have received word that Apple may be exchanging some batteries (on a case-by-case basis) for users still carrying a warranty who had their battery life permanently reduced by installing the first Mac OS X 10.2.8 release (see previous report).

Richard Peterson "Today, I called Apple support for the second time about this issue, and they offered to send a new battery. My battery life went from two hours to 15 minutes after installing the update. At the support person's suggestion, I downgrading to a clean 10.2.6 system, reset the battery, and reset the power manager: my battery life improved somewhat? to 33 minutes. In two days I'll have a new one."

As usual, those with the extended AppleCare service plan will have better success getting new batteries sooner.

AirPort Base Station problems Dan MacDougald reports two persistent problems with the Snow Airport Base Station since upgrading to Mac OS X 10.2.8:

"First, I can no longer configure it via Airport Admin Utility. Every attempt to input password results in failure message. Hard resets and soft resets, have no effect. Several users at Apple's discussion board report similar problems they cannot solve. However, I can still connect wirelessly to internet on G4 flat panel iMac with Airport card, and G4 Ti Book with PCI card.

"Second problem, my wife's clamshell iBook, running OS 9.1, with Airport card can no longer access internet via Airport. Airport shows strong signal from base station. TCP/IP shows assigned IP address of 10.0.1.x, while the two G4s have assigned IP addresses of 192.168.1.x

Printer sharing can become disabled Some users have reported that after applying the Mac OS X 10.2.8 update, the printer sharing option becomes turned off.

The fix is to open System Preferences, access the "Sharing" pane, and turn printer sharing back on. (Yesterday we noted some additional printer sharing problems, and solutions including re-applying the Mac OS X 10.2.8 combo updater)

FireWire expansion card problems Mac OS X 10.2.8 appears to be more picky about some third-party FireWire expansion cards than previous releases. Harry Erwin describes a problem with his Pyro IEEE 1394 card and the attached drive:

"I 'upgraded' to 10.2.8 (6R73) today and discovered Apple had really hosed up the driver used for interfacing my G3 PowerBook (bronze keyboard) to a firewire disk via a PCM slot (Pyro 1394 Card). When I connected the disk and powered it up, fsck_hfs launched and proceeded to hang, while the disk transferred an infinite amount of data. I pulled the disk out of its enclosure and accessed it using other techniques, and it's fine -- the problem is somewhere in the new operating system."

Feedback on any of these issues? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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