X40 battery life

[akeskira]

Hi,

I've got a ~14 months old X40 (1.3 GHz), and its battery life sucks big time. With wlan I don't get much more than an hour. This has been going on for months, and because of that I have to use the AC adapter most of the time. I bought an identical machine for my dad at the same time, and he complains the battery life also.

Do you think this is normal / acceptable? I'd expect a minimum of 2 hrs, whereas many machines seem to be able to pull 4+ hrs these days. The battery only had 12 mo warranty, but do you think I might have a case for a replacement?

Antti

[immaculate]

my x40 (1.4ghz) is about a year old. the battery life has always been ~1.5-2 hours on my 4cell. i have an extra battery that i recently purchased and that one also gets the same life. i usually turn the brightness down most of the way but need everything else (wifi, full CPU power, etc).

i think this is just how long the 4cell lasts?

aaron

[RS_003]

Well... those 4Cells don't last long

I Had an 8Cell.. and with that puppy I could get up to 6 hours... And in Extreme cases 7:20

So Buy an 8Cell... and all your worries are over.


(P.s. I am going to buy an X40 with a 4 Cell this time... And if I get it in time I will report back here! )

[cj3209]

I also use a powerbook and the PB battery requires a full discharge and recharge to correctly calibrate the sensor (so I'm told).

I'm not sure if this applies to Thinkpads but you may want to try it (fully use up the battery and then fully recharge it).

Cheers!

[RS_003]

For that you can use the thinkpad program.
(can't acces my X31 atm.. because its doing it right now)

That will completly discharge and then recharge the batt.
Also It will look at how much it can improve the batt.

So yes, you can do I manualy. But I recomend using the IBM / Lenovo program

[immaculate]

great tips guys. i have used IBM's "improve battery health" function a couple of times. doesn't help that much. actually, it worked well the first time but this time around, it basically did nothing.

i would get the 8cell, but currently my life is far simpler carrying 2 4-cells since i bought the x40 in addition to my 15" and 12" powerbooks so that i could have a sub-3lb laptop. the x40 with the 4cell is VERY light (2.8lbs i think?) and this is ideal for business travellers, students, etc.

aaron

[RS_003]

1.4 Kg isn't bad iether imho..
I really dont notice it anymore.

And I owned a lot of small and light laptops

[tommassit]

Could anyone tell me the total weight of an x40 with an 8-cell battery? Thanks.

[RS_003]

Just look at my post?

or look at the lenovo / ibm site ... or ... yes believe it or not... you could use google!

[tommassit]

Dang, sorry for being such a dork. I was skimming the posts and missing it.

Yup, you said 1.4 kg, which is 3.08 lbs. Thanks!

[phr]

The 8 cell pack adds maybe 1/3 lb to the x40, you don't really notice the weight. But it sticks out the back a little bit awkwardly, and the mount is not real tight, so it sort of wobbles around and feels like a kludge. I like the 4 cell a lot better for these ergonomic reasons. I get about 2 hours on my 4 cell but the ACPI reaches zero after 1.5 hours. Letting the pack keep draining after reaching zero did NOT seem to recalibrate the sensor, though I only did it once. Maybe I should try again. More annoying, the pack now holds only about 70% of its rated capacity (after about 1 year) even though I haven't used it much (laptop is on AC power most of the time, battery has had maybe a dozen charge/discharge cycles). Right now I'm travelling and using the battery so the low capacity is bothersome and I wish I'd brought the 8 cell. The 8 cell lasts about 3x longer.

If I really wanted extended battery operation I'd consider an external battery. www.batterygeek.net has an interesting selection. Also there are starting to be some 3rd party thinkpad batteries--see ebay for some vendors. (type "x40 battery" etc into the ebay search).