Ultraslim battery warranty?

[jsmit86]

I have a Ultrabay slim Li Polymer battery that is about 9 months old.

Design Cap = 23.76 Wh
Full Charge Cap = 16.00Wh
261 cycles

This has dropped pretty dramatically.
My question is will IBM replace this?
or do I just suck it up and buy a new one.

[RS_003]

Well, you did a lot of cycles (have my new T42 3 months and only got 8 cycles ) so sure, your battery will lose some power.
If its not in the red I don't think IBM will replace it since the large amount of cycles.
But you can always try it

[jsmit86]

OK, so I now have about 300 cycles on the Utrabay slim. Today while on batt power, my T42 just instantly stopped!

After trying to power up a few times, I took out the Ultrabay batt, and rebooted with no trouble. When I put the Ultrabay batt back in... WHAM! The PC dies instantly!.

This thing is slightly less than a year old. Do you think IBM will still replace it?

[c333]

Well, call and find out! I think if you get a nice rep and calmy yet authoratatively explain that you expected a much higher quality standard from IBM/lenovo, and that mobile computing is a major business factor for you, I'd say you have a good shot. You could aslo "lower" that Wh rating if you want, they might ask for it back, but they probably won't test it.

[jsmit86]

Well, I called IBM and they will exchange the battery, but I have one big problem. I moved, and I cannot locate the original receipt. I faxed the screen print from the machine showing first use in Sept of '04 after the phone rep said that would be OK, but I got a follow-up call saying no recept, no exchange.

Before I just toss the thing, does anyone have any suggestions?

(Other that HEY STOOPID... don't lose the receipt next time.... I already know that! )

[Ground Loop]

I wonder if the Li-Polymer in the Ultrabay Slim battery is simply not as durable as the Li-Ion cells in the main packs..

My Slim battery has 34 cycles on it, and the capacity is 20.23 (down from 23.76 "design capacity").

It's about a year old.

[jsmit86]

Again .

Before I just toss the thing, does anyone have any suggestions?

[mgenin]

Did you buy the battery with a system (like a laptop) if you did maybee you can find your order confirmation from that, IBM should be able to look up the serial number on the battery and tell if it still has warranty or not. They should replace it regardless if you have a reciept or not.

As for your laptop dying when you insert the battery, I have had many thinkpads before, and when the batteries do die, that is sometimes the situation. The charging circuit usually fries, and it shorts our you laptop when you put it in...

As for getting the most out of your warranty, if your batteries are loosing chargin capacity... short them out just before the warranty ends and make IBM replace them with new ones

[jsmit86]

IBM actually sent me the slim battery by mistake when I had a problem with my 6 cell. (Warranty issues for my T42 last summer)

After a few calls asking for the return tag, they finally sent me an invoice, and I paid it. The problem is that I cannot locate the invoice, or even my check. I moved to AZ from Chicago, and I've changed banks.

I thought that they would still have a record of my warranty calls, but they did not show up in the system.

This is not a huge deal, since my IT dept will now just order me a new one. It just seems reasonable that since the battery was manufactured in May of '04 in China, and the first use was Sept of 04 as reported by the battery brain, IBM would just replace it! In fact, when this was IBM, I never even had to go find a receipt. Lenovo,,,, that's another question.