T42 Battery Woe

[JHEM]

Wife announced upon returning home this evening that her work T42 wouldn't BOOT.

Went to check it for her in her office upstairs and indeed, pushing the power switch in her Dock II produced a momentary flash of lights, an attempt to startup and then an immediate shutdown.

Tried it half a dozen times with the same result.

Well, first thing to do is get it out of the Dock II. Hit the release button fully expecting it to pop up.

Nothing.

Pushed it again.

Still no response.

Sh*t!

Unplugged EVERYTHING, including power. Plugged the power cord in again and hit the release button.

Still nothing.

Unplugged it again and pushed and held the power switch for a slow count of thirty.

Plugged it in again and when pushed, the release button at last popped up.

Got the T42 released and attempted to start on battery. Same result, a momentary flicker of life and then shutdown.

Took her 6 cell out and put in a spare 9 cell of mine. Hit the power button and it started right up!

Shut it down, removed the 9 cell and plugged in a spare power brick. Hit the power button and it started right up again.

Shut it down. removed the AC line and replaced her 6 cell battery. Hit the power button and we were back to a momentary flash of the LEDs and immediate shutdown. Plugged the power brick in and got the same result, dead laptop. Popped the 6 cell out and again it fired right up on AC.

So, I surmise I've got a 6 cell battery thats internally shorted!

This is nothing really new as I've seen this behavior before, but usually on a battery that's lead a rough life and has little, if any, future.

What's surprising here is that this battery had no more than 10 cycles on it and is only ~6 months old. Her T42 resides in the Dock II in her office and seldom goes anywhere as she usually takes her personal T40 when we travel. While I'm not a big believer in leaving the battery in for long periods of time when on AC, her employer had previously stated that this is what they do instead of purchasing a UPS for everyone's home office.

Just thought I'd share this for the record as something else to check in case anyone else is presented with a T4X that becomes unresponsive on the spur of the moment.

Regards,

James

[MSR_Steve]

We had an issue with a battery from another manufacturer's laptop go bad - it drained to 0% and of course we got the same symptoms you describe, the quick flash and then nothing. AC power worked fine. The battery would not accept a charge when both it and the AC were powered on at the same time. This was a fairly new machine as well, only a few months old. Anyway we had another tech guy look at it a few weeks ago, and he got it working again by cleaning off the battery contacts, apparently they had gotten dirtied up somehow and no good connection was being made, and now it works fine. So there's something else to check for in batteries that mysteriously go bad.

[JHEM]

So there's something else to check for in batteries that mysteriously go bad.

Yep, BT, DT. GTTS.

Used my "Universal Burnishing Tool", otherwise known as the eraser on a No. 2 pencil to clean the contacts on the battery and stuck it in one of my T40 hangar queens with the same result.

Regards,

James