Battery guage goes from 1:30 left to critical suddently

[Morten]

This has been going on for a while. While on battery power, I only get about half of the 3 hours that the battery gauge initially estimates. Then suddenly, while displaying about one and a half hours left, and while I'm actively using the system (or if it's left idle), the system will hibernate and the battery LED flashes. When I turn it back on, I get the warning that battery is critical and I have to accept that before windows will boot.

Any idea what is up here?

The system is a frankie T61 in a T60 15" chassis running Win7. I have the bay battery and a 6-cell main battery that reports both design and full charge capacity as 56.16Wh and Sony cells.

I'm not impressed with the power management driver either - I have set it to only charge when under 85% and stop at 90%, but after the battery dies this way, it charges to 100%. I installed the updates for power management through lenovo system update, and see no available updates at this time.

Thanks for any help,
Morten

[ajkula66]

I'd venture a guess that the battery in question has one or more bad cells.

Try another - *known good* - battery and report back.

[Saucey]

I have come across 3 batteries like this.
I am presuming they are bad and not charging correctly.
I believe I have done the battery maintenaince cycle as well, still dies abruptly although it takes forever to charge.
They say good on the power manager as well, guess there's a glitch somewhere in there.

[TuuS]

I've seen this with generic batteries often but rarely with genuine lenovo parts, the one I did see it on I suspected was a fake knock-off, but I've never seen a knock-off with sony cells.

First remove the bay battery and diagnose them one at a time. You can do a gauge reset on any affected battery, it's possible that the gauge could be way off but more than likely a bad cell.

If you need batteries I have some including a Panasonic with Zero cycles and 100% remaining and an NOS ultrabay battery.

[andy2000]

Have you tried running the "improve battery health" in the power manager? This should resynchronize what the controller thinks the battery's capacity is with its actual capacity. It may take several runs if it's very far off. If that doesn't work, you will need a new battery.

[dr_st]

Then suddenly, while displaying about one and a half hours left, and while I'm actively using the system (or if it's left idle), the system will hibernate and the battery LED flashes. When I turn it back on, I get the warning that battery is critical and I have to accept that before windows will boot
...
The system is a frankie T61 in a T60 15" chassis running Win7. I have the bay battery and a 6-cell main battery that reports both design and full charge capacity as 56.16Wh and Sony cells.

Bingo!

The behavior you describe is very typical of worn-out Sony batteries. Their gauge shows as if they still hold 100%, while really they have much much less in them.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 49#p737349