Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

With old TPs, the battery cost can be quite close to the cost of TP. I was wondering if anyone has successfully used the non-genuine batteries that are cheaper, for # of years?

I've had good experiences with authentic batteries, where the wear % is kept less than 20% with over 3+ years of usage on my T510.

I'm still curious if anyone finds good reason to purchase non-genuine batteries?

Best,

I have a few 10+ year old genuine batteries that still work and hold around 50%-70% max charge (for my T30, A31p, T23, 600X, etc.)... not having luck with 560 or 380 batteries (they're a bit older so there's probably few if any genuine IBM 380/600 or older batteries that still work... bit of a pain if you want to upgrade the BIOS)

I've also had batteries fail after 3-4 years even with normal use (one of my T43 batteries appeared to be shorted out and messed up the power manager chip)... normally I'd shy away from generic/third-party batteries for the fact that they don't last as long as genuine IBM and may cause issues with Speedstep/power management/etc. (of course in the case of older, pre-2000 machines the safest bet is to rebuild an old pack using fresh high-quality cells)

24.99 usd aftermarket battery for T42. Had it for just short of 5 years, (5 years in april). Its on 18% wear, just about lasts 2 hours.

Never had a aftermsrkrt battery last this long. They have usually halved their capacity by 2 years, and dead by 3.