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Is a 100% charged battery really required for BIOS updates?

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 3:23 am
by eecon
I keep my minidocked T61 charged at around 50% to maximize battery life and seldom use the battery except once every couple of months to do a battery maintanence cycle as advised by Lenovo.

I understand the reason for requiring that I undock the unit before updating the BIOS, however what is the logic behind requiring a fully charged battery (for example, would a 96% charged battery be considerd acceptable)?

Thanks.

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:03 am
by Brad
The program looks for a charged battery so that in case the A/C power is disrupted during the update your ThinkPad wouldn't turn into a brick because the BIOS would be corrupted.

It seems that if the battery is close to 100% the update will proceed. Like somewhere in the high 90's.

Brad

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 3:16 pm
by asianboyztn
i dont think you need the battery about 90% up to update, as long as the battery light is green you can able to update

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:26 pm
by eecon
asianboyztn wrote:i dont think you need the battery about 90% up to update, as long as the battery light is green you can able to update
Okay thanks everyone .... I was concerned it had something to do with determination of max battery capacity in that if you flashed with a 50% battery that was in brand new condition (but just not fully charged), the new BIOS would then reset future capacity to think that 100% was now at the observed 50% level seen during the flash. I was probably trying to overthink the issue :)