Thinkpads Forum

The battery level on my T61 goes down slowly from 100% to about 25% when running off battery, and then suddenly plummets from 25%-4% almost instantaneously. I then usually have less than a minute to plug it in before it hibernates.

I bought this T61 over new year's so it's just under 6 months old. It has for the most time lived in a docking station though I try to take it out at least once a week to give the battery a workout.

Right now I am traveling, so the battery is used every day for quite a few hours.

Anyway, I am curious if anyone else has experienced this rather drastic drop in power from 25% -> 4%.

thanks,

Esmail

I´m having this problem with my R60 (6 cell SONY battery). My baterry already isn´t under warranty, so i´m waiting for battery death and i´m going buy new one (after 2 years of using i have only 35 Wh of original 56 Wh/136 charge cycles)

your battery just needs to be conditioned/calibrated. It has lost some capacity but that hasn't been updated to reflect the change. The sensors tell Windows what's going on and if they aren't accurate you'll get sudden drop offs like that. They will run down and then realize, oh wait, uppon review it seems i REALLY have x out of 56Whrs, sound the alarms!!!"

LOL

Once you calibrate the battery you'll get a better run time. You'll notice your batter life decrease but it's a consumable so that's expected.

(you might be able to get Lenovo to replace it if it's going down too fast though... call them with the info exactly as you said above and they will give you a new one, 75% sure)

SHoTTa35 wrote:your battery just needs to be conditioned/calibrated. It has lost some capacity but that hasn't been updated to reflect the change. The sensors tell Windows what's going on and if they aren't accurate you'll get sudden drop offs like that. They will run down and then realize, oh wait, uppon review it seems i REALLY have x out of 56Whrs, sound the alarms!!!"

LOL

Once you calibrate the battery you'll get a better run time. You'll notice your batter life decrease but it's a consumable so that's expected.

(you might be able to get Lenovo to replace it if it's going down too fast though... call them with the info exactly as you said above and they will give you a new one, 75% sure)

hi,

thanks for the post, I'll give Lenovo a call when I get back home. In the meantime, how do I callibrate my battery .. easy to do?

thanks!

it takes some hours but basically instead of plugging in the charger you let it run till it dies. If it hibernates you turn it back on and then let it run till it actually shuts off. You charge it up fully then do it again.

Then again, if you don't have that sorta time, (do it overnight) you let the Power Manager software take care of it. It'll do the samething but more elegantly. Open the application then go to battery Information tab and click battery maintainance and follow the steps.

SHoTTa35 wrote:it takes some hours but basically instead of plugging in the charger you let it run till it dies. If it hibernates you turn it back on and then let it run till it actually shuts off. You charge it up fully then do it again.

Then again, if you don't have that sorta time, (do it overnight) you let the Power Manager software take care of it. It'll do the samething but more elegantly. Open the application then go to battery Information tab and click battery maintainance and follow the steps.

Great, I'll do it tonight the "automatic" way. Thanks for the information and help.