Never 100% battery

[Domestika]

What the hell.
I have a thinkpad T41. I've had it for about 5 months and I have never been able to get 100% out of my battery.
I can charge it all night, then unplug it, turn it on and I have 96% of my battery left. And every time I turn the computer on and off I lose another 4%.
And I only ever get 3 hours out of my battery, assuming I never turn it off and then on again, because if so then I get significantly less (because of the 4% drop). And I use the battery maximizing setting. :/
Believe it or not, this is my second battery. There must be something else wrong.
IBM told me to get back to them when this second battery is only lasting 20 minutes or so. With a three hour battery life, they won't do anything more.
Why do I lose such a chunk of my battery life every time I turn my computer on? Argh!

[Bluecat]

As far as I know, the whole process of starting up the computer involves so much activity that you can never have all battery power left after bootup.

I also end up with about 96-97% after boot up (A22m). If I run it down (also involves extra activity) and boot up again I loose another 4 points.

If you imagine the HDD activity during boot up compared to normal work it seems logical. I never had second thoughts about it.

[beerak]

But in case of 5 months old battery ... hm ... I have battery 9 months old and I am able to reach 100% and after startup it has 99-100%

Batteries have 6 months warranty you should return it to IBM for replace.

[Domestika]

The battery isn't even 5 months old. It's a replacement IBM sent me (after THREE requests by me). I've had this battery for a couple of weeks, but from the moment I charged it up and turned on the laptop, it's never been able to reach 99 or 100%.
And I have a feeling that, no matter what battery I put in there, it's going to do the same thing. But I can't think of whatelse would cause that. Maybe my computer is just using way more energy to boot up than it should, for some reason?
It's SUCH a pain in the [censored] trying to get replacements rom IBM even though I have a great warranty package and they should be sending me anything I want.
Bah.

[Bluecat]

I just got a my new battery three months ago. After startup 96%. Lasts me hours and hours though. No complaining here (average use 4+hrs) 5400 mAh.

[kchung]

Make sure you Embedded Controller and BIOS are both up to date. I believe one of the Bios updates for the T41 involved a battery not charging problem. However when we saw the battery not charging problem, it usually was when the battery was below 25% and then it wouldn't charge.

In these instances, I would make sure the BIOS was up to date. Shutdown the system, take out the battery and disconnect AC. Hit the power switch 10 times, hold it in on the 11th for 30-60 seconds, and then put everything back together. This usually got the laptop to start charging the battery again.

In your particular instance, are you sure the battery is 100% before you booted the laptop on battery? The thinkpad battery/software will not charge a battery to 100% if the battery charge is between 95-100, unless you discharge the battery below 95 and then leave the system on the AC power until it gets to 100.

I also agree with the other poster - you may be starting at 100 but just the boot up is knocking enough off juice of the battery so by the time you login and see the battery meter, it's down to 96%. How many amps does the battery details screen say you're drawing?

BTW, i just booted my T41. I'm pretty sure my battery was @ 100%. By the time I logged in and got to the windows desktop and looked at the battery, mine said 94%. Also the current the system was sucking was 1.4 amps and the screen dimmer/power saver hadn't kicked in. The disk has stopped working away, wireless is on and and I have the screen at max brightness, and I'm pulling 1.01 amps. I dimmed the screen a couple notches and now I'm down to 0.84 amps with an estimated run time of 3 hrs 55 mins. FYI: My battery Full Charge cap as shown on the battery health info is 41.13 Wh out of a Design Cap of 47.52 Wh.

It takes my machine a couple minutes for the disk to stop cranking because I have a bunch of start up apps - if I got rid of those, I suppose that I'd get back a couple percent of bat power, but that's just a guess.