Thinkpads Forum

I have owned my x61 for a little under 2 years at this point. However, my battery life now with the 8 cell is a mere 30 minutes. I understand that battery life deteriorates with age, but this is a bit ridiculous. I was wondering what could have caused this.

Also, I remember reading that battery warranties are something on the order of 9 months. Does this mean I'm simply out of luck and have to shell out another 150+ for a new extended life battery to turn my portable laptop into an actual laptop?

The battery warranty is usually 1 year. You mention that the unit is 2 years, does this also include the extended battery? If you bought the ext battery separately and it is less than 1 year old, try calling Lenovo.

I have a very similar problem - my X61 is 15 months old, battery life with 8 cell is 1 hour. Only 110 cycles on the battery. Very frustrating.

My old T40 took about three years to reach the same deterioration in battery life.

I am having a bit of a whinge at Lenovo support; if I have any result I will post back here.

Whose the manufacturer of the battery? What is the full charge capacity that is shown in the power manager? (Questions are for both redsoc and JohnTGWalker).

Sony, 36% of original capacity, manufacture date March 3 2008. Ridiculous!

Totally ridiculous. Have you ever calibrated the battery, i.e. let it run down to 0% and turn off, instead of hibernating at 3% or so?

I have run the battery maintenance a couple of times recently. I have not just let it run down; I will try that and see how long it lasts.

If you do end up looking for a new one I wouldn't shell out $150 for it from the Lenovo store. I'll say right off the bat I have no commercial affiliations etc with him whatsoever (hope that's good for conflict of interest disclosure ), but I always go to forum member Brad for genuine Lenovo batteries at reasonable prices.

Thanks for the kind words. Who needs batteries?

Brad

Hi redsoc,

Have you tried to perform a reset of your battery's smart chip to see if your battery can be re-calibrated to more accurately reflect its true capacity?

1. Bring up your Power Manager via:
... a. Double clicking on your battery gauge on your taskbar, or
... b. Pressing Fn+F3, then click "Manage Settings...", or
... c. Hitting your "ThinkVantage" blue button, click "ThinkVantage Technologies" > "Power Manager".

2. Click on the "Battery Information" tab.

3. Click on the "Battery Maintenance..." button.

4. Click on the "Perform Reset..." button.

Follow the on-screen instructions.

I hope that can help to reset your battery. Otherwise, you may need to get a new one.

Hi All,

My 8-cell battery also has a similar problem. Manufacture date: 02-2008, by Sony. Jumping down from 80% to 1% in a second, then going hibernating. Gauge reset does not help at all.

I am thinking to order a new one from Lenovo. Is it possible that we can ask for a Sanyo one? I noticed that many Sony batteries are facing the above problem.

LittleBear

I am in the same boat. Original battery is kaput! Power Manager indicated battery is bad. Will not even charge. System was purchased 7/07.
I tired to go with a replacement other than Lenovo and have been bitten.
The replacement (LIB201, battdepot.com $47.99 was worth a shot) originally lasted for about 2 hours on July 10. Today 20 minutes. Learned my lesson!

My battery died about a month ago. Very suddenly. It just didn't start one morning after a charge. Just a blinking orange battery light... It was made in July 2007.

Take a look at the URL below... it's a recall for x61 dead battery issues. Unfortunately for me my FRU is a 93P5032 not a 30. I may call for support anyway...

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... ATT-082009

I forgot to add that I bought a "replacement" on e-bay. It runs fine, many hours, but unfortunately the machine dies at 38% remaining charge. The battery gauge reset didn't work.