T61 and prior T series ThinkPad Laptops

[#1]

I am on the same boat now. purchased a T61 last year and the battery has FRU 42T4504. 1-year warranty just expired and "your battery can only store 9% of its original full charge capacity" (<10 min). My wife's T61P is 2 years old and its battery can still hold around 2 hours. Hope they can cope with this situation soon.

[#2]

I have two batteries with "SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME"  (orange blinking light out of nowhere instead of the nearly perfect battery the day before).  They are at about 90% battery capacity, one is actually "charged" to 70% right now, but it still doesn't do anything. Both batteries died within a month of each other, and at about 16 months from purchase.  Both laptops are still covered by extended warranties (for a total of just about $4000 wasted on now useless laptops).

FRU: 93P5032 ASM:42T5209

I don't have the information for the second battery right now, I'll post it later

I have wasted time installing windows to run the "battery service extension check programs" (these laptops do not run windows) and one of the laptops could not run the check (crashed with an error, phone support was unhelpful), the other "did not qualify". 

When I installed lenovo power manager it said "Irreprable Battery Damage" on both batteries.

[#3]

Battery on my X61 tablet failed suddenly in 10/2009. Battery was manufactured 2/2008 and first used 5/2008 and only had 161 cycles. I was getting 6-7 hours battery life one day, and then suddenly battery error the next day. FRU is 93P5032 and is not being replaced free of charge by Lenovo.

[#4]

I keep reading about doing mainteneance 3 or 4 times to get the battery level back up, but each time I do it I lose more battery capacity.

As I mentioned, I bought a new third party battery. Out of the box on first charge it had less than 90% of the rated capacity. I have done maintenance 3 times now and it is down from rough 52wh to 43 now -  a little less each time in a week.

I updated power manager from 1.13c to 1.63 and tried again and same result.

This is exactly what was happening with my Lenovo battery. Something else must be wrong.

Any insight at all?

Thanks.

~Bob

[#5]

uld love to get some feedback here please

The thrid party battery vendor thinks:

"If experiencing same issues with other batteries, then it's possible
something is wrong with the battery controller on the motherboard."

He think a BIOS update might cure this. Anyone agree or disagree?

Thanks.

~Bob

[#6]

---

rebop wrote:

uld love to get some feedback here please

The thrid party battery vendor thinks:

"If experiencing same issues with other batteries, then it's possible
something is wrong with the battery controller on the motherboard."

He think a BIOS update might cure this. Anyone agree or disagree?

Thanks.

~Bob

---

When I first reported my battery problem the support tech ordered a motherboard replacement. The new motherboard was installed and this did not correct the problem.

However, when the motherboard was replaced I no longer had a "healthy" battery to use with it as both batteries I own had failed.

I would be surprised if a BIOS update would cure the problem considering it's happening to people using various BIOS versions. Particularly, you wouldn't be able to tell because it is not possible to update the bios (at least not with an X60t) without a charged, functional battery.

Tech Support was unaware of this as well, because when I called to have them update my machine type (since the system board replacement came with an incorrect type) they sent a technician who could not do anything for me because of the battery failure.

[#7]

Thanks.

Just researched BIOS changes and this seems very interesting and may be MY problem if not others:

<2.06>
 - (Fix) Improved battery operation time of a model with an ATI M66 graphics chip.

<2.05>
 - (Fix) Enabled ATI PowerPlay feature on a model with an ATI M56/M66 graphics chip,
         that was disabled in BIOS version 2.04. Then adjusted behavior of ATI PowerPlay
         mode on ATI M66 graphics chip. According to this change, a battery operation
         time of these models are improved.

<2.04>
 - (Fix) Disabled ATI PowerPlay feature on a model with an ATI M56/M66 graphics chip,
         in order to fix M66 model intermittent Windows hang with battery operation.
         Due to this change, a battery operation time on a model with an ATI M56/M66
         graphics chip becomes shorter.

Will have to check and unfortunately leaving for two weeeks on business tomorrow. So will wait until I return.

~Bob

[#8]

some of us can't upgrade the BIOS though, because we have the x61t without a CD drive.  Even if we have the dock, the BIOS utlity won't let us upgrade with the dock, and we definitely can't upgrade with these broken batteries.

[#9]

You can add me to the list.

My T61p with 42T4511 running Windows XP SP3.  42T4511 Manufacture date 2007-11-21, First used date 2007-12.  Cycle count 131.  - almost exactly 2 years old.

I did a maintenance reset yesterday.  It was running fine until a couple of hours ago when I got this error message "A battery error has occurred..." just like the others who experienced this fault.

I tried to perform reset several times without success.  It would not even  power up on the battery even though the power manager tells me there is 84% charge left.

I think the problem may be with the battery management electronics and the battery cells are probably still ok.

Disappointing that Lenovo seems to be ignoring the issue.

[#10]

That battery is in great shape for 2 years old. I would be quite happy with 85% after 2 years.

Lithium-ion batteries age. They only last around three years, even if they are sitting on a shelf unused. So do not "avoid using" the battery with the thought that the battery pack will last five years. It won't. Also, if you are buying a new battery pack, you want to make sure it really is new. If it has been sitting on a shelf in the store for a year, it won't last very long. Manufacturing dates are important if  it sat on shelf  for 2 years before you purchased it you only have around a year left.

So even if it has no cycles battey will be gone 3 years from manufacture date on pack.