Thinkpads Forum

I have a couple of old T60 batteries that the OS reports as being only 30% rechargeable. Apparently the battery has an internal memory and the OS (or perhaps the CMOS) will simply not try charging beyond that point.

Is there a way to reset the battery memory and retry a higher charge amount?

From what I have seen around my college campus, the T60 batteries are not that great.

Your battery most likely cannot be reconditioned and the T60 batteries seem to fail ... a lot.

Maybe I should try one of those aftermarket batteries then. I had one for another TP and liked the performance.

There are mixed reviews from the generic batteries. I have one in my T60 and it works great ... but sometimes they aren't.

Check on the battery for what type it is. If it is Nickel Metal Hydride then you may have luck recharging it. If it is Nickel Cadmium or Lithium Ion you will have no such luck.

Li-ion batteries have a built-in protection circuit that's designed to prevent the battery cells from overcharging, undercharging, or overheating which all can cause the battery pack to explode violently in certain cases. Once the protection circuit decides the Li-ion cells have reached the end of their service lives, the battery will not accept a charge at all.

Even replacing the spent Li-ion cells won't allow the battery pack to work again because the protection circuit won't allow it to work.

Bypassing the protection circuit is generally frowned up because Li-ion battery cells can very definitely explode when mishandled.

Using the power utility to reset the battery stats is a crap shoot, I've had it improve and had it diminish different times. T60 batteries suck, at least the first one mine came with died completely in less than a year and so did a 9-cell that I hardly used.