can't find "threshold" settings for battery

Message

Ogg · #1 Post by **Ogg** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:48 am

I can't find where to set the battery threshold settings that have been mentioned in various messages here. I have:

IBM ThinkPad Battery MaxiMiser and
Power Management Features 1.38

IBM ThinkPad Configuration 1.32

IBM ThinkPad Power Management Driver 1.43

I don't see any options to adjust battery threshold. Can anyone shed some light on this?

SHoTTa35 · #2 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:58 am

well it should be under the "Battery Information" tab and you click "Battery Maintainance"

You click that then you go in and change your thresholds.

Ogg · #3 Post by **Ogg** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 12:01 pm

I can't find any "Battery Maintenance" tab or button.

SHoTTa35 · #4 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 1:34 pm

how about you install "Power Manager" then..... i don't use BatteryMiser for whatever reason and in Power Manager that's where it is.

Even tho the T40 isn't on the list it should work just fine with it still.

EDIT - or wait a minute... i fired up my other T42 (for sale soon) and it has "Status" area, Then there's the "Battery Health" button then click "Improve Battery Health" . You'll see the thresholds there.

Ogg · #5 Post by **Ogg** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:13 pm

If you mean "Power Management" via "Thinkpad Configuration", then no go. When I pick Power Management, I only have 3 options: Battery Maximizer Wizard, Battery Information, and Advanced Settings. Battery Information offers a "Battery Health..." button when I select that, all I get is a screen with some stats, and a "Battery Tips.." button that only takes me to a help file.

#6 Post by **bill bolton** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:55 pm

Ogg wrote:I can't find where to set the battery threshold settings that have been mentioned in various messages here.

A T40 has fixed thresholds, you can't change them.

Cheers,

Bill B.

pianowizard · #7 Post by **pianowizard** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:58 pm

The T42 (and presumably the R51 as well) was the first to allow you to change the thresholds.

Ogg · #8 Post by **Ogg** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 6:26 pm

bill bolton wrote: A T40 has fixed thresholds, you can't change them.

Bummer. The first time I ran my laptop on battery, I was able to use if for about 4 hours and I still had about 30% battery juice left. I've been primarily using on AC since then. But lately, I ran on battery again.. but I was only able to run for 3 hours when the level reported 40%. Great, I figured I still had atleast 1 more hour of use. But then SUDDENLY, the level dropped to 4%. An associated pop-up and audio warning alerted me to that. I have the 9-cell extended battery. Has anyone else experienced this sudden drop of battery level, and if so, is there an explanation/solution?

#9 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 7:01 pm

You state that you have Power Management 1.38. Well 1.38 is Battery MaxiMiser. What SHoTTa35 is referring to is Power Manager. If you want to try Power Manager, you need to uninstall Battery MaxiMiser first.

Power manager driver for Windows 2000, XP - ThinkPad

#10 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 7:08 pm

Here is an old thread with some information on this issue.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=23682

Ogg · #11 Post by **Ogg** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 11:05 pm

GomJabbar wrote:What SHoTTa35 is referring to is Power Manager. If you want to try Power Manager, you need to uninstall Battery MaxiMiser first.

Ah... Thank you for that. I see that it's not compatible for my T40p. My higher T4x cousins are fortunate to have the threshold feature.

Ogg · #12 Post by **Ogg** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 11:09 pm

GomJabbar wrote:Here is an old thread with some information on this issue.

Too bad "threshold" is not available for T40 and older models. The thread helped me to understand. Thanks.

Ogg · #13 Post by **Ogg** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 11:13 pm

SHoTTa35 wrote:...in Power Manager that's where it is. Even tho the T40 isn't on the list it should work just fine with it still.

Hmmm... I'm a bit leary in trying that unless there are other T40 users who claim it works fine. Why would IBM exclude T40's from the list if this tool would be an improvement for T40 users, I wonder?

#14 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 11:23 pm

Ogg wrote:Hmmm... I'm a bit leary in trying that unless there are other T40 users who claim it works fine. Why would IBM exclude T40's from the list if this tool would be an improvement for T40 users, I wonder?

cmarti reported using Power Manager successfully on his T40 in the thread I linked to above. I am not recommending you do this, just pointing out what others have done. Myself? I still use Battery MaxiMiser on my T42.

#15 Post by **bill bolton** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:26 am

Ogg wrote:Hmmm... I'm a bit leary in trying that unless there are other T40 users who claim it works fine. Why would IBM exclude T40's from the list if this tool would be an improvement for T40 users, I wonder?

I'm using Power Manager on T41s without any problems. Even though not all the features are available, the improvement over Battery Maximiser in terms of overall presentation and the level of information provided is useful enough!

As for T40/41s not being included in the supported system list for Power Maanager, my guess is that IBM/Lenovo didn't want to get involved in fully regression testing every new release of Power Manager on older models that just couldn't support some of its features.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Ogg · #16 Post by **Ogg** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:19 am

GomJabbar wrote:Myself? I still use Battery MaxiMiser on my T42.

I'm almost tempted to give it a try if only because the existing Maximiser doesn't seem to be fully functional either. For example, I only get a little green horizontal battery symbol on the task bar with a pop-up with the time-remaining:
http://kolico.ca/thinkpad/battery-1.jpg even though the setting is for a black background and a TIME display: http://kolico.ca/thinkpad/battery-2.jpg ..and as you can see, there's a huge discrepency in the time report.

..And, when I hover the mouse over the standard Windows battery symbol (the blue one), just a couple minutes later, I get a completely different report: http://kolico.ca/thinkpad/battery-3.jpg Which report is right?

I didn't realize how long it took to create those snapshots! Let me try again, but faster..

This is the report over the blue battery: http://kolico.ca/thinkpad/battery-4b.jpg

And this is the report over the green battery:http://kolico.ca/thinkpad/battery-4a.jpg

SHoTTa35 · #17 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:55 am

The ThinkVantage stuff is right. Windows estimates battery life but the Battery Miser stuff reads directly from the battery and is usually a bit more accurate.

That's some nice battery life tho, that's 9 cell you are using right? I can get 3hrs out of my 6 Cell so that definitely should be a 9 cell.

Ogg · #18 Post by **Ogg** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 8:24 am

SHoTTa35 wrote:The ThinkVantage stuff is right. ...that's 9 cell you are using right?

Good point.. I should be trusting Thinkvantage. I do primarily anyway because the battery %'age is displayed right on the green battery all the time. Hard to ignore it. And yes.. mine is a 9-cell. It will be 4 years old in October 178 cycles so far. I lose about 10% every 30 minutes. For instance, I've been on battery since 8am this morning.. it's now 9:30a and the battery is reporting 70% left. But yesterday was quite a different story.. I seemed to be running fine for 3 hours on battery, with 40% remaining.. but then suddenly the report dropped to 4% when I hovered over the battery to get the time! I'm testing again today to see if this problem will duplicate.

Ogg · #19 Post by **Ogg** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:40 am

I'm not fairing too well with my "wonderful" 9-cell. After 2 hr and 30min of use, the battery display suddenly dropped to 4% and reporting that I had about 10 minutes of use. I plugged in the AC for 5 minutes.. and the battery charged to 11%. Then it reported 30 minutes of use left. I'm still watching the battery drain. Now, after 15 minutes battery, it reports 7% and 20 minutes remaining. anyway, it seems strange that one 5 minute charge would provide almost an extra 30 minutes. But most importantly, the sudden drop to from 45% to 4% in the first 2.5hrs of use concerns me. Anyone have any clues?

SHoTTa35 · #20 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:01 am

you probalby need to condition the battery. Even tho it's running and saying 5% let it run till it absolutly dies and shuts off. Make sure you're not running anything critical because the laptop will just shut off at any moment. While they say it's not good to deep discharge Li-Ion batteries, you sometimes have to to recalibrate the sensors so they don't throw off early warnings.

Ogg · #21 Post by **Ogg** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:03 pm

SHoTTa35 wrote:While they say it's not good to deep discharge Li-Ion batteries, you sometimes have to to recalibrate the sensors so they don't throw off early warnings.

I'm reconditioning as we speak. I started at 5pm my local time. I doubt the deep cycle and recharge will restore extra battery "time". The process, as you said, sounds like it's designed just to recalibrate the guage. Any bets that I will still only have 2.5 hours of battery life after all this? <g>

#22 Post by **carbon_unit** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:23 pm

Sometimes when they are out of calibration and saying it is at 1% with 1 minute remaining they will run for30 minutes.

Hence the "recalibrating" part.

Ogg · #23 Post by **Ogg** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:15 pm

SHoTTa35 wrote:you probalby need to condition the battery. ...you sometimes have to to recalibrate the sensors so they don't throw off early warnings.

After one full cycle, this is the result:

http://kolico.ca/thinkpad/battery-5.jpg, and
http://kolico.ca/thinkpad/battery-5a.jpg.

The results are even worse. Very disappointing. Is this normal during a reconditioning process?

SHoTTa35 · #24 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 2:59 am

how is that worse? as far as i can see you were getting 1hr 37mins with a 90+ battery now you're getting the same amount of time (estimated) witha 45% battery. Charge it up and you'll be at 3hrs or something.

drnoom · #25 Post by **drnoom** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:41 am

Ogg wrote:I'm not fairing too well with my "wonderful" 9-cell. After 2 hr and 30min of use, the battery display suddenly dropped to 4% and reporting that I had about 10 minutes of use. I plugged in the AC for 5 minutes.. and the battery charged to 11%. Then it reported 30 minutes of use left. I'm still watching the battery drain. Now, after 15 minutes battery, it reports 7% and 20 minutes remaining. anyway, it seems strange that one 5 minute charge would provide almost an extra 30 minutes. But most importantly, the sudden drop to from 45% to 4% in the first 2.5hrs of use concerns me. Anyone have any clues?

i have the same problems. i solved this by disable battery alarm.

Ogg · #26 Post by **Ogg** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:21 am

SHoTTa35 wrote:how is that worse? as far as i can see you were getting 1hr 37mins with a 90+ battery now you're getting the same amount of time (estimated) witha 45% battery. Charge it up and you'll be at 3hrs or something.

But that's the result after being on charge all night. Today, same result. I had let the battery run right down, then I let it charge overnight. This morning when I unplug the AC, the Maximizer guage says 100%, but the blue-battery guage reports 47%. Both guages estimate approx 1 hr 57 min. Does a full recharge take longer than 10 hours?

#27 Post by **GomJabbar** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:11 am

I just looked at my T42 which is running Battery MaxiMiser 1.38. The green icon on the lower right is showing 96%, and Windows Power Meter shows 95%.

If I click on Battery Health, the Design Capacity is listed as 47.52 Wh. The Full Charge Capacity is listed as 37.55 Wh. Cycle count is 46.

If you installed Power Manager on your T40, that may be the reason for the different readings.

can't find "threshold" settings for battery

can't find "threshold" settings for battery

Re: can't find "threshold" settings for battery

Re: can't find "threshold" settings for battery

Who is online