To all the battery-experts out there...

[RfromR]

I bought a "brand new" genuine IBM battery for my Thinkpad 570 and realized later that it may not give 100% power any more because of its manufacturing date.
Any ideas as to what percentage I might expect (the battery has yet to arrive here)?

Just curious,

Thanks,

RfromR

[pphilipko]

It could range anywhere from 0 - 80 %. There is no "test" to predict how well the battery will work until you've received it. However, it will most likely be less than 50% from the ravages of time...

[RfromR]

Thanks
If I can get an application installed that shows the battery status, I will give the result here.

[RfromR]

Hmz, it doesn't charge (it seems)....anybody know how long it may take? I've had it charging for a few hours now.

So: how many hours until I can be 100% sure the battery is worthless?

Update: I found the info, might as well put the link here:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... FAN-3QNQJN

[AlphaKilo470]

Try leaving the computer plugged in overnight with the AC adaptor plugged in and the power off. I have a 570 that I just got in the mail today and it had been sitting so long that the battery took well over an hour just to charge past 0% but went slightly faster once it got past that. Sometimes batteries will be a little troublesome when they are new and haven't been used before and/or haven't been used in a significant period of time.

[kstuart]

Yes, 570 is going to be short on battery life in general. I have 4 batteries:

- Original one was DOA.
- Used one, very cheap on ebay, lasts 15-20 minutes.
- Brand new one sealed in the IBM box, lasts roughly 2 hours with wifi
- Another one which arrived inside a very cheap "for parts" 570 (bad LCD) which in total costs less than the new 570 battery, lasts almost as long as the new one.

My thought is that with a Thinkpad which has been discontinued so long, so that no batteries have been manufactured in several years, such as a 570, the only chance of a truly new battery is that place which puts new cells into laptop batteries, batteryrefill.com (note that I have never used their service, but I did hear about it on this Forum).

[RfromR]

Thanks for the useful replies AlphaKilo470 and kstuart.

I have had it plugged in+powered off for 7 hours now.

However, if I follow the guidelines in the link its gonna be a lenghty affair : for unused batteries they advice to charge 12 hrs, discharge, charge 12 hrs, discharge, charge 12 hrs!).

BTW, is the colour of the LED a reliable indication of the battery status? At what percentage does it change from orange to green?

[RfromR]

Aha, the orange light just started to blink....something is going on in there after all!

Edit 24-08-06: it turned out to be a DOA (the seller promised to send another one). In the meantime I bought and received a replacement battery...which works for at least 2.5 hours (my OS crashed and the battery didn't have enough power to do a restart). Funny thing is that the last 0.5 hour it ran with a battery status indication of 1%. Maybe it could have been/will be even more, but I'm already happy now with 2.5 hours...