Battery Question... hotswap?

[MaloventEvil]

Are the batteries in the T4x hotswappable? IE if you sleep the computer, can you pull the battery out, put it back in, and reawaken the computer like you can on a mac?

Thanks.

[hoya]

no, you have to use hibernate in order to swap the battery.

as for the Powerbook, are you referring to the new high-res model? I know that particular machine includes a software feature whereby the contents of RAM are written to the disk so that no data is lost in case a user unplugs and loses battery power during sleep mode.

[Aroc]

You need to hibernate, not stand by.

hibernate is suspend to disk
stand by is suspend to RAM.

[christopher_wolf]

That feature on the Powerbook, I think, is akin to Hibernate, not Suspend. Suspend does just that, it suspends the active contents in RAM; Hibernate justs images the RAM onto a portion of the disk, so Suspend draws more power during the sleep state than does Hibernate which draws as much as the Thinkpad does when it is off. Resuming simply mounts the last image back into RAM for Hibernate.

[davidspalding]

Are the batteries in the T4x hotswappable? IE if you sleep the computer, can you pull the battery out, put it back in, and reawaken the computer like you can on a mac?

No, but if you have your AC adapter handy....

I have an Ultraby Slim battery, I haven't tried swapping the main while the Ultrabay battery is in. I doubt it would work, but then, THIS IS an ThinkPad.

[Aristotle11]

I hotswap with my AC in all the time. Hibernate works just like the mac feture.

[asiafish]

That feature on the Powerbook, I think, is akin to Hibernate, not Suspend. Suspend does just that, it suspends the active contents in RAM; Hibernate justs images the RAM onto a portion of the disk, so Suspend draws more power during the sleep state than does Hibernate which draws as much as the Thinkpad does when it is off. Resuming simply mounts the last image back into RAM for Hibernate.

Actually the PowerBook does it with a small capacity that holds power for about 20 seconds so you can switch the battery. PowerBooks didn't have a hibernate function until last year, though older ones can be activated for it in the Unix terminal.

[Champ]

yah I think some other computers also have that capacity. A small lithium battery support RAM for a few seconds. Considering that takes next to no electricity at all.

[christopher_wolf]

That feature on the Powerbook, I think, is akin to Hibernate, not Suspend. Suspend does just that, it suspends the active contents in RAM; Hibernate justs images the RAM onto a portion of the disk, so Suspend draws more power during the sleep state than does Hibernate which draws as much as the Thinkpad does when it is off. Resuming simply mounts the last image back into RAM for Hibernate.

Actually the PowerBook does it with a small capacity that holds power for about 20 seconds so you can switch the battery. PowerBooks didn't have a hibernate function until last year, though older ones can be activated for it in the Unix terminal.

That would akin to using the Ultrabay Slim Battery; however, I haven't found a way to get it to deplete the Slimbay battery last so I can use it as a hotswap buffer. It might be a nice feature, but if your suspend/hibernate times are close together, why not just hibernate then swap the batteries?

Oh, a device swap whilst a system is in the suspend state is called a warm-swap, instead of a hotswap if I remember correctly.

[davidspalding]

A: I just pulled my main 6-cell and am replying with only the Ultrabay battery providing power.

[asiafish]

As long as something is in there, you're good to go.

[christopher_wolf]

Thanks; but I was talking about using the main battery to depletion then having the ultrabay battery kick in and power the system until another main battery is connected. It always seems to run down the Ultrabay first.

[Tiger]

Came across this how battery swapping will occur in Vista.

"Sleep state. The new Sleep state in Windows Vista combines the speed of Standby mode with data protection features and low-power consumption of Hibernate. The Sleep state also allows users to change or remove a battery with little risk to open applications and data, since memory is safely written to the hard disk. Startup from the Sleep state requires just seconds, meaning fewer shutdowns and restarts are necessary, which helps improve power management. "

[Champ]

basically a quick hiberate???

I don't understand what you can do in between hibernate and suspend.

[christopher_wolf]

Came across this how battery swapping will occur in Vista.

"Sleep state. The new Sleep state in Windows Vista combines the speed of Standby mode with data protection features and low-power consumption of Hibernate. The Sleep state also allows users to change or remove a battery with little risk to open applications and data, since memory is safely written to the hard disk. Startup from the Sleep state requires just seconds, meaning fewer shutdowns and restarts are necessary, which helps improve power management. "

That doesn't mean much, IMO; you can't power the RAM without a battery or AC unless you utilize a piece of hardware inside the computer that is physically capable of powering it. To me, that just sounds like they are preparing any laptop with Vista OS on it to have a safe warm-swap of the main battery if indeed all the required hardware in that laptop actually supports a battery warm-swap. It looks as if they backup the data in RAM with a partial hibernate and have reduced the resume time for that partial hibernate (most likely by putting it on a quickly accessed portion of the disk and an instant goto instruction that runs a check against it and the data in RAM while it resumes.)

[own6volvos]

yah I think some other computers also have that capacity. A small lithium battery support RAM for a few seconds. Considering that takes next to no electricity at all.

If by none at all you mean a few AA's might last an hour doing it, then yes

[asiafish]

The hibernate function on the PowerBook is MUCH faster than Windows, I believe because the hibernate file is constantly cached as the machine is used, making the time required to write any changes to it at any given instant far shorter than writing the entire contents of RAM as Windows currently does.

This could be what is coming in Vista, I hope. I just know that My PowerBook goes into sleep (standbye) instantly, and by the time I turn it over and remove the battery, it is fully in hibernation. If the computer is plugged in, it wakes from sleep (standbye), but if not, and all power is cut, then it resumes from hibernation, which takes approximately 15 seconds (768MB RAM).

The larger PowerBooks have a capacity to maintain the contents of RAM, but the smaller 12" model (like mine) and the iBooks do not. Still, it is at least twice as fast as Windows, perhaps more.

[davidspalding]

Well, Mac OS 9 and earlier shut down lickety-split, much faster than *any* Windows, on *any* machine ... so hibernating quickly is not surprising at all. Not sure about Os X, bet it's the same. It's just something that I've taken for granted with Macs - shut down is all of 10 seconds, tops.

Aside to Chris: if you were answering me, I know, I really wish I could do that, since I have a new 9-cell coming.... But it occurs to me that you can just slide out the Ultrabay batt, and slip it in when the main batt is down to 3%. Not exactly what you and I are thinking of, but.... But. ,:}

[asiafish]

Actually OSX shuts down a lot slower than OS9, its a Unix system and has a lot more overhead.