Thinkpad - bad battery?

[worker201]

I've got a Thinkpad T-60.  The low battery light is flashing orange, and if I unplug the AC power, it dies.  However, the battery itself claims to be fully charged, according to those little check LEDs.  I've got Windows on there, and it claims that the battery is fully charged - which is in fact true, as far as I can tell.

So how else can I check the battery?  If the battery is okay, wtf is wrong with the Thinkpad?  Please don't say the motherboard, because I let the warranty expire about a week before this started happening.  They called and called to get me to extend the warranty, and I told them to fuck off. 

Just to be clear, it works just fine with the AC adapter plugged in.

[Refalm]

Is it a Sony battery by any chance?
I know someone with the same problem, he had a Dell.

[Calum]

it's the battery. you can recondition the battery (probably instructions on web), it's simple, but takes two days and in my experience it gets you at most 5% of battery capacity back. I've not known the IBM battery utility to misfunction, so if it says fully charged, and the battery's not working, it'll be because the battery has lost capacity over time due to use. Does this sound consistent?

Basically, by the sound of it, i think it's the battery, and that a replacement battery for an IBM T6* is what you need. No warranty is implied or given with this comment though!

[davidnix71]

If your laptop battery's life has gotten shorter over time, The New York Times recommends recalibrating it:

    ...the calibration process basically involves first turning off your screensaver and other power management settings that put the computer to sleep. Then fully charge the laptop before letting it run all the way down until the computer shuts off automatically.

    Once the battery has fully drained, you can charge it back up again and restore your screensaver and power management settings.



If that doesn't work, then it's time to buy a new battery.

[worker201]

It's not a Sony battery.  The label says it is manufactured for Lenovo in China.

Recalibration is not possible, as the computer powers down immediately if the AC is unplugged.

I guess I do need a new battery.  I wonder if there is any place around here that sells them - I'd prefer to take the computer in and make sure that a new battery is the answer before spending the money.  Official Lenovo brand batteries are $180.

[davidnix71]

$81 plus shipping here:

http://www.ibm-laptop-batteries.com/ibm-thinkpad-t60-series.htm#

The reviews here suggest problems with the "ultrabay" Sony battery.

http://www.breakitdownblog.com/lenovo-thinkpad-t60-battery-life-35-or-9-hours/

[worker201]

The reviews here suggest problems with the "ultrabay" Sony battery.

http://www.breakitdownblog.com/lenovo-thinkpad-t60-battery-life-35-or-9-hours/

The ultrabay battery is a bonus battery that fits in the combo-drive slot.  You can trade optical support for extra battery life.  I don't have one of those.  My battery is one of those 9-cell fuckers.  Weighs a ton.  Think I'll get a 6-cell replacement.

Weird thing is that I don't think I've ever used the battery on this computer.  Both it and my MacBookPro are laptops that spend 99% of their time plugged in on a desktop.  But the Mac, which is considerably older, still gets like an hour of battery time.

BTW, that article is wrong about the Intel 945GM.  It drives the screen pretty well at all sorts of resolutions.  I chose the integrated graphics because it was the only one guaranteed to support Linux out of the box with open source drivers.  Then again, I've never had any real concern for high-end 3D performance.  Unless you're a gamer, the 945 is great.  And personally, fuck gamers.

[davidnix71]

I have a kill-a-watt meter and the last G4 PB Apple made. Since I run off a solar battery bank, I wondered how much power it took to run the laptop and whether the charger that used 110v and a sine wave inverter was less efficient than a direct 12v car adapter. Both use the same amount of power.

Both the Macally charger and the original Apple wall wart float charge the battery. The energy consumption is almost zero when the battery is full. No dis on IBM, but I think Apple's charger is smarter than most in not overcharging the battery. The flaming Dells with Sony lithium batteries (which were outsourced to China/not made in Japan) failed because heat from charging caused internal cell failure.

There is also some problem with lithium batteries in general. I have a pocket camera that uses a Nokia cell phone battery and both of the batteries went sour without much use. One was bought new. Neither would hold a charge for long and both self-discharged excessively. It makes the camera almost useless.

I would feel safer with NiMH batteries in a laptop even if it cut the runtime.

[worker201]

[totally off-topic]On the ship, we used laptops (Dells) because the electrical power was so unreliable.  The theory was that if the power spikes, you don't lose all your data, and can continue to work until the engineers can switch generators.  The practice was that even though the laptop stayed on, the serial and USB peripherals would all go off, which caused Windows to shit itself.  Wanna watch Windows crash hard?  Connect like 9 serial devices via some USB serial hubs, get them all flowing, and then disconnect them in mid-stream.[/totally off-topic]

A lot of things about the Mac are smarter than their competitors.  Then again, a Mac charger costs $85, and a Lenovo charger costs $59.  You really do get what you pay for.

[Lead Head]

Have you looked at in the manual for what the flashing light might mean, possibly something else but low battery?

[worker201]

Manual is depressingly unhelpful in this regard.  For starters, there is no "manual".  ie, there is no book that tells you what that blinking battery light actually means.  I just assumed it was a dead battery thing because the computer dies without AC power.  There is a "Service and Troubleshooting Guide", but it doesn't mention the flashing lights, it only suggests that if your battery is dead, you should get a new one.  Thanks for that!  RTFM, indeed.

[Lead Head]

That is very surprising coming from an IBM/Lenovo laptop. I would expected them to have provided top notch documentation.

[worker201]

Well, maybe they did, but I think I killed it.  As you may know from previous threads, I wiped this thing clean and installed Linux the day it arrived.  Most of their documentation is in the computer itself, or online but only accessible through their proprietary help system.  I just downloaded the software, hopefully it doesn't require me to go online to find that information.  The Windows machine is not allowed to go on the internet.  Why?  Because it is running Windows.

[davidnix71]

On the outside there is a single set of LED indicators, from left to right: Battery, AC Power, and Sleep. The Battery indicator will blink when charging, shows orange when the battery is low, and solid green when fully charged. The AC Power indicator lets you know if the AC adapter is plugged in, an added feature over the T4x series. Lastly the sleep indicator specifies if the notebook is in Standby mode; it also blinks while the notebook is saving into Hibernate mode and turns off when completed.


Goggle results.

Also badly translated, overcharging the battery will ruin it.

Question:I have a IBM T60 laptop. My IBM ThinkPad T60 battery  life has been diminishing lately (around 2 hours when I used to get 4), so I left-clicked on my battery gauge, bring up the power manager, went to batteries maintenance, and did a power gauge reset. This is supposed to fully charge, then fully discharge, then fully recharge my battery.
 
  Answer:Take out your battery from the laptop and keep it outside for a day then plugin back and try it!! impossible it kill itself suddenly!!! remember dont over charge your battery, it will make your battery weak very quickly!!and buy brand battery .
new laptop battery yingzi

[davidnix71]

One more hint. I sometimes recondition sealed ups batteries from work. We can't afford to buy new because the economy is in the toilet (lots of people are being let go in two weeks).

If you overcharge a battery you will get gas bubbles that separate the electrolyte from the plates, even on a sealed battery. That's what causes "memory" in NiCads. If you don't do it too long, it can be reversed by ***slowly*** discharging the battery and ***slowly*** recharging it a couple of time. Slow is the key, and not overcharging so long that the plates dry out from gassing.

Smart battery chargers limit the applied current so the battery sees no more than one volt over its current state. That prevents gassing/electrolysis.