So my battery only goes up to 97% now

[bioyuki]

Please bear with me, this is my first laptop, never had to deal with batteries before

So yeah, my standard 6 cell battery is fully charged (the battery light is solid and not blinking) but the Battery MaxiMiser gauge only reads 97% and will not go up to 100%. Is this normal? My battery is only a week old.

Kinda as a corollary, how often do I need to 'Improve Battery Health'. Are there any detrimental effects to using that utility?

Thanks.

[Kenn]

I think by default the charger won't start charging unless you fall below 97%. You can set the thresholds in the Battery Maximiser (start chaging a XX%, stop charging at YY%)

[First Light]

Is the threshold 97% or 95%. Whatever. You need to let the battery drop below that threshold while operating in the battery mode. Then once it drops below the threshold plug the charger back in and it will charge to 100%.

[iriverconvert]

Hi all. I have experienced a certain problem that cannot be fixed through the normal means no matter what charging threshold is set.
For example, I used to have the battery charge up after it dropped below 85%. However, I noticed that it would start charging and stop at 65% or so. Even if I turned off the T42 and let it charge for 30 minutes there would be no difference in charge.

I was a little frustrated, so I plucked out the battery after turning the computer off. I slid it back in, powered on the laptop, and the battery started charging regularly until 97% where it stopped. Is this normal? This has happened to me at least three times.

[planetf1]

I've noticed exactly this - even with the previous BIOS update.

It appears to happen once "embedded controller" version 3.03 or above is installed. 3.02 did NOT have this problem

Now bios 3.08a supposedly prereqs ec 3.03 so you may have to remove both.


Has anyone else seen/reported this? or indeed NOT get it.

I

[PaulB]

Actually, I had the same problem while running version 3.02 of the Embedded Controller. I know because I was ready to update to the latest BIOS 3.08a/3.03 but had my battery stuck to about 75% (IBM recommends your battery be fully charged before upgrading the BIOS).

Although I had previously changed the start_chraging/stop_charging tresholds, I had restored them to their defaults (96%/100%).

Anyways, after doing several restarts to no avail, I finally tried removing and re-insetring the battery. The battery light finally went yellow and started recharging.

So this is not necessarily a problem introduced in the new firmware version.

PaulB

[Humpa]

Has anyone else seen/reported this? or indeed NOT get it.

I, indeed, have NOT had any issues with the battery or Battery Maximizer. It always behaves as it is supposed to. However, I only have 18 charge cycles on my T42 since June, but have had the previous couple of bios/embedded controller versions too. I have 3.08a/3.03 now.

It seemed to me that (most?) people that had posted problems, either didnt have the most current drivers, or they had the problems when using hibernate or standby and/or had more than one battery and were switching them. I only have one battery (6cell) and I almost never use hibernate or standby, so I dont know about that.

A common solution posted was to remove the battery (and maybe reboot?), and then put the battery back in - Like PaulB just posted.

[planetf1]

I do have two batteries
9 cell LiIon
Ultrabay Lithium Polymer

Sometimes the ultrabay one is swapped for DVD, but that's probably only a few times per week max.

The machine is constantly docked/undocked charging/not charging ethernet/wireless open/closed (replicator) all day - well probably 15x upwards per day. Prior to 3.03 all fine.

It does however have pretty much everything at latest levels including all the IBM drivers except access connections which is not installed (verified with the thinkpad installer tool)