Irrepairable damage to battery occurring out of the blue?

[Troels]

Hi,

I don't really know what i did, but it appeared some hours ago on my T60p with a 9 cell (Sanyo) battery - it was never recalled or anything. The battery indicater flashes yellow, and it will not boot from battery at all, let alone being disconnected from A/C power.

My battery was used for the first time in 2007/04, so it is exactly three years old. Is this a mere coincidence, or is the death of the battery timed by the embedded microcontroller in the battery? Afterall, it stores a first used date - and i couldn't help but notice threads such as these: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-Th ... d-p/135717
A family member has a T42 which has a battery which lasts 30 minutes, and is in "red" condition, but it has worked fine since 2004.

Are there any details of what this microcontroller monitors in order to deem the battery damaged? I used the laptop disconnected from A/C two days ago, and it worked completely fine with nearly three hours battery life left when fully charged.

Since Lenovo decided to detect band & recalled batteries by a downloadable program, it is somewhat hard to detect, whether buying a slightly used battery is ok or not.
- I'm thinking of buying a used 6-cell battery with Panasonic cells - were there ever any recalls of these?
- Do Panasonic battery packs still fit snugly with the T60 series like they did with the T4x series?
- Or are there any way to get this mighty expensive lithium paperweight to work again?


EDIT: Interesting video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOTQJv_ZPvU

[jdhurst]

A little understood fact about batteries is that they are just chemistry. They use themselves up and die (in different ways as you noted). Just a fact of life. Your battery has served you and it is now time for a new one. I would get a Lenovo certified replacement as you do not want to damage your thinkpad. ... JDH

[Troels]

Thanks. Yes, i wouldn't consider anything else than using genuine Lenovo batteries - even though it's really hard to find any genuine ones between all the fakes

I still don't quite "buy" that it goes from about 60% capacity to dead. The capacity as a function of storage time is exponentially decaying, why shouldn't the capacity as a function of both time and charging cycles also have a similar tendency? In http://www.che.sc.edu/faculty/popov/drb ... /Web33.pdf they determine the cell resistance, which directly affects the cell voltage to be a function of the formation of products that passivate the negative electrode conductance. The relation with a good fit was R_now=R_start+K*sqrt(# cycles) .. K~=0.0016 and constant.

[jdhurst]

These cells can die suddenly. Car batteries die suddenly as well. Not all of them, of course, but defects don't necessarily follow a neat equation. It does not particularly surprise me that batteries go bad quickly (suddenly).
... JDH
'

[jharrison29]

I still don't quite "buy" that it goes from about 60% capacity to dead.

Same problem here. This weekend my battery went from a working 3hr battery to zip. I ran it to about 6% on the meter before shutdowning down. Now it won't charge and shows 67% but is really 0.

So I need a new battery, can anyone recommend a site where I might get a good price? I'm afraid of going to Amazon or somewhere like that and it seems that to replace my 9 cell battery (2 yrs old) at shop.lenovo is almost $200! I see a site called thinkpad parts and another acsparts. They claim to have lenovo batteries but it does not indicate if they are new or used.

I'm looking for FRU 42T4619 which apparently is no longer sold at Lenovo, they offer different part numbers. MY T61 is a wide screen and so there are different batteries for that. I find shop.lenovo confusing in regards to battery selection plus they have a 9 day lead time!

Any suggestions?

Thanks, Jon

[Troels]

Jdhurst,
I guess you're right. It just bothers me that they are so unpredictable. I mean NiMH would just keep on working and don't have any real memory effects and lose capacity.

Hello Jon,
I have simply missed my own thread completely. I don't know if it is too late now, but Lenovo has for a long time now sold refurbished 9-cell batteries (amongst others) here: http://outlet.lenovo.com/accessories/ca51j0467.html
I don't know exactly what "refurbished" means. Old stock? Who knows...

A general question to anyone: If a 6 or 9-cell original Lenovo battery has never been used (0 cycles), but instead has been stored for say nearly 2 years - would it be something which is safe to buy, or should one not touch this with a ten foot pole?

[jdhurst]

@Troels - Newer batteries at Lithium Ion, not NiMH batteries. It has been a long time since I have used a computer with a NiMH battery, but my recall is that they did not die suddenly like LiOn batteries. In the same way, car batteries (pre 1985 approx) did not die suddenly - there was alway some life. New car batteries can die instantly and not even click the starter. Such is life I guess. ... JDH