Thinkpads Forum

Hi
I have a 12 cell battery in my t60. It is a sanyo one (not original part) and it used to work just fine. At the beginning (~2.5-3 years ago) it was holding for 4.5-5 hours. Over time it declined to ~3 hours. It has 300+ cycles on it.
Normally, if I watch a movie, the laptop will shut down when battery reach ~6% charge. For some reason the alarms wont sound (this might be me - I need to recheck) so the laptop just dies completely.
Yesterday it died in the same way, but when I plugged it on the charger the battery was at 26%. Strange. I unplugged the charger and it died immediately as if there was no battery at all.
I decided to run a reset, and left if running for 9 hours. It seems it didnt run at all so I stopped it.
Now it is connected to charger but the battery wont charge. Stays at 26%. It says charging, but nothing happens.
Has it died suddenly and what can I do?
New one?

Those Sanyo cells are some of the worst.
Since that battery is a knock-off, you should praise yourself lucky that it lasted that long!
Normally these already die after only a few months!

See this thread for some more info: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=101769
I'd say get a new (or good used) one (preferably 9-cell Panasonic).

RealBlackStuff wrote:Those Sanyo cells are some of the worst.
Since that battery is a knock-off, you should praise yourself lucky that it lasted that long!
Normally these already die after only a few months!

See this thread for some more info: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=101769
I'd say get a new (or good used) one (preferably 9-cell Panasonic).

Thanks for that - it was pretty cheap when I got it. Do they die in exactly the same way always?
I'd expect it to start discharge in less and less time but still charge. Not to just die completely and not charge.

The generic batteries often display unreliable data and run out of charge before reaching 0%. I agree with RBS that you're lucky to get even a year from a generic, but I've seen some genuine panasonic batteries still have most of their charge after 6 or more years.

If you want a reliable battery I'd also recommend the 9cell panasonic, or 6cell if you want a compact battery. I have some listed in the marketplace ranging from $30-50 if you're interested. You can take your chances with another generic, but be careful with the new free-trade laws it makes it very easy for fake (black market) batteries to get into the country. Such a battery may not have been inspected to meet all the safety standards. This is especially true if it's a knock-off carrying the lenovo brand as such a battery would never get submitted for testing, so be careful. If you want a generic I'd get one from a local distributor so you have some legal recourse if something horrible happens. I'd also watch it very carefully for overheating as a lithium fire is very hard to put out.

If I were getting another T60 battery, I would buy an Anker at Amazon :
http://www.amazon.com/Extended-Capacity ... 60+battery

Read the reviews, the manufacturer is surprisingly responsive to anyone who has problems.

Also check the overall ratings for Anker batteries vs. the other brands sold there.

I've purchased the Anker battery before and as far as generics go it's one of the better ones. Definitely avoid most of the ones selling on ebay, most if not all of them are blackmarket.