New Battery very slow Charging

[slick]

Hello,

I recently picked up a new battery for the x60 from amazon. While, I can't vouch for the newness of the thing, I seem to be having trouble getting the thing charged in time. It charges fine when once I close the lid ( upto 70% , after that its pretty much stops) But when plugged in it won't get past 10-14%.

I am running Debain on the machine and here is the battery information:

Code: Select all

crunchbang@crunchbang:~$ upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
native-path:          /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0A08:00/device:00/PNP0C09:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0
vendor:               SANYO
model:                42T4632
serial:               8883
power supply:         yes
updated:              Wed Dec 10 18:05:19 2014 (0 seconds ago)
has history:          yes
has statistics:       yes
battery
present:             yes
rechargeable:        yes
state:               charging
energy:              8.35 Wh
energy-empty:        0 Wh
energy-full:         74.88 Wh
energy-full-design:  74.88 Wh
energy-rate:         11.059 W
voltage:             14.958 V
time to full:        6.0 hours
percentage:          11.1512%
capacity:            100%
technology:          lithium-ion

I suspect that it some battery saving feature that I am not aware of? Or I ended up with a bad apple. Btw, I almost forgot, I am using the 90W adapter to run it.

[brchan]

Is this a genuine OEM lenovo battery? Non OEM batteries can often have problems. It is possible to manually put limits on charge percentage, but the firmware in the battery gets reset if you unplug the battery. Seems like a faulty power circuit in the battery.

[slick]

Is this a genuine OEM lenovo battery?

Is there a foolproof way to verify if the battery is genuine lenovo ?

I brought it from amazon. The reviews for the product mentioned that it was indeed a oem battery. May be I got the wrong one?

[brchan]

That battery link you posted does look like an OEM battery. My guess would be that you got a defective one. Has your x60 ever had any problems charging your older battery?

[rkawakami]

Picture does look like a factory battery but I'm concerned by the warning in the description, "NOT compatible with the X60 X61 Tablet PC versioand/or the docking station". Yes, the 22++ battery is not for the Tablet models but a true factory battery for the X6x series WILL fit when used with the UltraBase. Most (?) of the aftermarket batteries that I've seen do not work in conjunction with the base; it's due to the smaller amount of "flat space" next to the cylindrical shape for the cells. I think I have a picture somewhere on my web site; I'll link to it if I find it. Does your battery match the picture in the Amazon description?

Can you possibly get some more details off the battery pack, like the number of charge cycles and the first used date? This information is available from the factory Power Manager utility for Windows; not sure if Linux can extract the same data but it looks like maybe it can; the "has history and "has statistics" seems to say so.

edit: Here's the difference between genuine and aftermarket 22++ batteries that affect usage with the Ultrabase:
<-- Clickable image for 800x400 pixel version; 26KB
<-- Clickable image for 800x400 pixel version; 26KB

[slick]

Has your x60 ever had any problems charging your older battery?

I don't know as I brought it from ebay a few weeks ago. It came without a battery

[slick]

Can you possibly get some more details off the battery pack, like the number of charge cycles and the first used date? This information is available from the factory Power Manager utility for Windows; not sure if Linux can extract the same data but it looks like maybe it can; the "has history and "has statistics" seems to say so.

I am not sure how I can grab the information in Linux. I have posted a question on stack-exchange will see if anyone answers.

[slick]

Picture does look like a factory battery but I'm concerned by the warning in the description, "NOT compatible with the X60 X61 Tablet PC versioand/or the docking station". Yes, the 22++ battery is not for the Tablet models but a true factory battery for the X6x series WILL fit when used with the UltraBase. Most (?) of the aftermarket batteries that I've seen do not work in conjunction with the base; it's due to the smaller amount of "flat space" next to the cylindrical shape for the cells. I think I have a picture somewhere on my web site; I'll link to it if I find it. Does your battery match the picture in the Amazon description?

hmm, I actually thought of buying one from lenovos website. It looks like they have different batteries for the tablet and the regular ones.

[rkawakami]

Yes, they are not compatible. It has to do with the way the tablet battery has to fit around the swivel/hinge.

[slick]

It took me a while, but figured out a way to find out the battery information. In linux, most of the power-management stuff seems to be provided by the module tp_smapi. After that I was able to read the information I needed.

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--- TLP 0.6 --------------------------------------------

+++ ThinkPad Extended Battery Functions
tp-smapi   = active
tpacpi-bat = inactive (kernel module 'acpi_call' not installed)

+++ ThinkPad Battery Status (Main)
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/manufacturer               = SANYO  
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/model                      = 42T4632
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/manufacture_date           = 2013-10-12
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/first_use_date             = 2014-12-18
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/cycle_count                =      9
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/design_capacity            =  74880 [mWh]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/last_full_capacity         =  74880 [mWh]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/remaining_capacity         =  22910 [mWh]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/remaining_percent          =     31 [%]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/remaining_running_time_now = not_discharging [min]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/remaining_charging_time    = not_charging [min]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/power_now                  =      0 [mW]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/power_avg                  =      0 [mW]

/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh        =     25 [%]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh         =     50 [%]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/force_discharge            =      0

It looks like the battery I purchased is about an year old

[rkawakami]

Looks like your charging thresholds are in need of a tweak:

/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh        =     25 [%]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh         =     50 [%]

but that still doesn't explain why the battery is only getting to ~15%

[precip9]

Coincidentally, I had this problem the other day, also with an X61s. The battery is aftermarket.

The normal charging rate at a low state of charge, before tapering, is about 1.8a.
Lenovo Power Manager was indicating a charge rate of 1/10 that, of 0.18a.
The charge state was given as about 12%, with an expected charging time of something like a day.

The battery had been taken out of storage and was close to zero charge. It was in the process of maintenance, bringing it up to ~30% for continued storage.
I figured the keep-alive circuit had glitched. But I could not resist swapping the battery into another laptop.

The battery indicated 100% charge! It is currently in use with that laptop.
Meanwhile, the original laptop works fine with another battery.

Whether the glitch was software, hardware, or a combination, I do not know.

[slick]

Looks like your charging thresholds are in need of a tweak:

/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh        =     25 [%]
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh         =     50 [%]

but that still doesn't explain why the battery is only getting to ~15%

Thanks for pointing that out, I fixed the thresholds to 75 and 80 respectively and it seems fine.

As for the slow charging, I am beginning to think that it be the fault of the power brick (a cheap replacement rated at 20v and 4.5 A); To test my theory, I powered off the laptop and let it charge for an hour -- the charge went up by 30% !

Any ideas? Btw, how do I figure out if a charger is genuine? There seem to be quite a lot in amazon

[slick]

Hello,

Sorry about the late response. Holidays .

Today, I sat down and installed windows 7 on the same machine hoping that Lenovo's power management drivers might give me a clue. Here is a screenshot of the power-managers battery tab. Notice the current, charge completion time.

Current status status of the laptop.

1. It charges fine when powered off ( 3 - 4 hours)
2. When powered on, charging is inconsistent; Many a time, the device simply doesn't charge, but when it does the charging rate is very low*

Unless, I am wrong it looks like there is something wrong with the charging circuit present on the motherboard.

Anyways, once the holidays are over I will see if I can return the battery/ borrow a genuine lenovo charger. For now, I just have to suck it up and power off the machine whenever I plan to charge it.

* When it is charging, however slow that might be, the current value displayed by power-manger in Windows and tlp in Linux vary between 0 - 2.9 A. It seems to fluctuate between the two
** btw, I have updated the bios to the latest 2.19 version. I haven't changed the bios battery though, not sure if that is going to make any difference.

Thanks!

[slick]

The normal charging rate at a low state of charge, before tapering, is about 1.8a.
Lenovo Power Manager was indicating a charge rate of 1/10 that, of 0.18a.
The charge state was given as about 12%, with an expected charging time of something like a day.

Whether the glitch was software, hardware, or a combination, I do not know.

In my case the charge rate (current) varies a lot; 0-2.9A. Thanks to that the battery never really charges when the charge is in single digits, but above 50% it charges but at a very slow rate.

So far, I have checked it with a different power adapter, but the problem seems to persist. I am planning on testing it with a new battery.

Thanks!

[slick]

I feel silly it was a case of a faulty battery . It took me a new power supply and a battery to find that out. Any-ways, I will be returning the 8 cell battery I bought from Amazon.

The irony is that new battery that is working is non an original lenovo.

Thanks for the all the suggestions and comments guys.