Thinkpads Forum

I just installed an aftermarket $35 Ebay battery. It works fine (although it is almost 20% lower capacity than advertised). However, the Thinkpad battery manager detects it as a non-IBM battery and pops up a warning at every opportunity. Does anyone know if the warning can be disabled? It goes away on its own but it is annoying.

Thanks,
Paul

pgoelz wrote:I just installed an aftermarket $35 Ebay battery. It works fine (although it is almost 20% lower capacity than advertised). However, the Thinkpad battery manager detects it as a non-IBM battery and pops up a warning at every opportunity. Does anyone know if the warning can be disabled? It goes away on its own but it is annoying.

Thanks,
Paul

You may have to uninstall TV Power Manager software. I believe there are other ways to follow the condition of one's battery, probably just through Windows (especially Windows 7) however I've not explored them. Otherwise, power manager is fairly useless and duplicative of what Windows offers itself.

For what it is worth I've been running Windows 7 on a couple of Thinkpads recently (not this one that I'm typing on, unfortunately) and although I have installed a few beta TV applications, I have not missed the overwhelming majority of them.

Thanks Ken, that is pretty much what I figured. And yes, Power Manager does duplicate the Windows power manager. But it also adds some extra features which I like, such as all the battery information. The warning isn't all THAT obtrusive.... it goes away in a few seconds. It is just annoying having what amounts to a marketing / CYA message in my face every time I power up.

Interestingly, as soon as I installed it I started having display driver crashes. That stopped after I went to the Intel site and installed the latest Intel driver (later than the one on the Lenovo site). It seemed like power manager was crashing the video driver when it changed speeds/modes.... it only did it when attempting to play videos, not during normal operation.

Paul

pgoelz wrote:The warning isn't all THAT obtrusive.... it goes away in a few seconds. It is just annoying having what amounts to a marketing / CYA message in my face every time I power up.

I also find the warning annoying and intrusive. You can revert to using the standard Windows battery gauge without uninstalling by going into the Battery Manager options and clearing the check mark to display icon in tray. That is what I'm doing now. I think that without the Lenovo software installed, you may lose the option of controlling exactly at what percentage drain you want to start/stop charging, and that is the main reason I've kept it.

I have been waiting for NotebookBatteryInfo to be updated in the hopes that I will be able to use it in place of the Lenovo battery gauge until Lenovo fixes this problem in their software:
http://www.batteryinfo.co.cc/

I poked around a bit in the registry and in some of the program libraries, but was unable to find a tweak that would disable the "not a genuine" Lenovo battery warning.

Phil.

It is possible to patch the toolbar, so that it does not show the warning. Files:
PWMTR32V.DLL
PWMTR64V.DLL

Located around:
C:\Program Files (x86)\ThinkPad\Utilities

This is an instruction for a system programmer, and even for those - please use this on your own risk.
If the file is patched improperly, then Explorer will constantly crash until the file is removed or reverted.

Power Manager Version 3.05
PWMTR64V.DLL (64-bit version):
Locate the following bytes:
74 0D BF 09 00 00 00
And replace with:
EB 0D BF 09 00 00 00

Power Manager Version 3.25 (they have changed a few things)
PWMTR64V.DLL (64-bit version):
Locate:
74 0B 8D 7A 08 45 33 C0
Replace with:
EB 0B 8D 7A 08 45 33 C0

Both versions 3.05 and 3.25, 32-bit:
PWMTR32V.DLL (32-bit version):
Locate the sequence of bytes:
74 0A BD 09 00 00 00
And replace with:
EB 0A BD 09 00 00 00

Version 3.61 patch:

64-bit version, PWMTR64V.DLL
Bytes:
BA 01 00 00 00 85 C0 74
Replace the 74 byte to EB, so that the sequence looks like:
BA 01 00 00 00 85 C0 EB


32-bit version, PWMTR32V.DLL
Bytes:
85 C0 74 0A BD 09 00 00 00
Replace the 74 byte to EB, so that the sequence looks like:
85 C0 EB 0A BD 09 00 00 00



I don't know if there are side effects that affect a battery time calculation or power regulation. But during the time I've been using it (more than a year), no side effects were found.

Lenovo: please add a check box "Do not show a warning sign again". Just because of the warning people most probably will remove the software and not use it, rather than buying a genuine battery.

rrtdj wrote: For 64-bit version, locate the sequence of bytes: ...

I'm not suffering from this issue, but have to ask how in the world you deduced the override. That's quite impressive.

Art

ArtShapiro wrote:
I'm not suffering from this issue, but have to ask how in the world you deduced the override. That's quite impressive.

Art

By doing reverse engineering, and going backwards from the "non-genuine" message - one can see by which factors it is triggered. There is some complicated formula in place and a comparison - if the result doesn't match - it returns a code of 9 (which afterwards is compared against, and a message displayed). So changing the above bytes will avoid returning code 9.

The message and a permanently visible black exclamation mark are both removed after this patch.

rrtdj wrote:
By doing reverse engineering, and going backwards from the "non-genuine" message - one can see by which factors it is triggered. There is some complicated formula in place and a comparison - if the result doesn't match - it returns a code of 9 (which afterwards is compared against, and a message displayed). So changing the above bytes will avoid returning code 9.

The message and a permanently visible black exclamation mark are both removed after this patch.

I am amazed you were able to figure this out, I had searched the internet for a fix for quite some time and the only "solution" I found was to simply uninstall Lenovo's power manager.

I had my doubts at first (editing a .dll is not something to be taken lightly) but everything is working just perfectly. I had explorer crash on me (as you warned) soon after I did it, but since restarting I have yet to have that issue return.

This is seriously impressive, you're a genius. Mad props.

It works! Thanks a lot rrtdj!!!

rrtdj, maybe you can also figure out how to disable battery stretch notification when battery is on 20%? The feature seems to be useless for me at least and rather annoying.

avdim wrote:battery stretch notification

? I don't know what this is. Maybe it's a translation issue. Can you explain further?

Help gives the following topic.

• This section describes the Battery Stretch settings available in both Basic and Advanced modes.
  Battery Stretch gives you extra battery life when you need it most. It allows you to disable selected devices in your computer to gain extra battery life.
  Battery Stretch can be activated in one of the following three ways:
  While in Basic Mode of Power Manager, click Settings button present in Power Use tab or switch to Advanced Mode and click the View Battery Settings hyperlink present in Power Plan tab. A Battery Stretch panel will be displayed. Select Enable Battery Stretch option to activate battery stretch in your computer.
  Press Fn + F3(Fn + End) to view Power Plan menu.
  Right click on Power Manager’s battery gauge displayed on taskbar to select Activate Battery Stretch.
  Once Battery Stretch is activated, increase in battery life is estimated based on the selections in Battery Stretch panel and is displayed as Estimated increase in battery life. This value varies based on computer usage and current battery remaining time. The value thus estimated is the minimum amount of time by which battery life will be increased.

The problem is that it always popup notification in case this feature is disabled. And I dont't want to enable it because NONE of sugested power saving options really make any sense. It seems to wake up on 25 or 20 %. The icon is ugly even if stretch is on. And there is no setting to chanhe threashold etc. The simpleast way will be turn it on on 3% instead of 25%. In that case it will never pop up.

Hi rrtdj,
I too am amazed at your ability here. Apparently Lenovo has not figured out that this message is little more than malware/nagware/adware and fixed this message. I have the current power manager version 3.30 and the above fix does not work, at least my hex editor does not find the number sequence. Can you offer any advise for version 3.30?
David

rrtdj wrote: Lenovo: please add a check box "Do not show a warning sign again". Just because of the warning people most probably will remove the software and not use it, rather than buying a genuine battery.

Or better still, remove the incentive to use knockoff batteries. Make the genuine batteries more reliable and/or longer lived and/or less expensive. I would very much prefer to use genuine batteries but not at the price per month of life that I have experienced.

Paul

Hey!
At first, my apologies for bringing up a topic this old.
I have, however, probably just done a mistake, which will be regretted every time I use my x60s.
I had my Thinkpad PowerManager 3.25 patched according to this topic - worked great. Today I was updating some of the software, and the Power manager was updated to the latest 3.59, which, of course, spoiled everything.
Are there any updates to this thread? I've been googling for a few hours now, can't find a thing.
I do not want to downgrade, as I prefer newer software to older, of course. But is that the only cure? Is everyone with a non-genuine battery using the old PM or suffering from the nag screen?
Thanks!

Version 3.61 patch:

64-bit version, PWMTR64V.DLL
Bytes:
BA 01 00 00 00 85 C0 74
Replace the 74 byte to EB, so that the sequence looks like:
BA 01 00 00 00 85 C0 EB


32-bit version, PWMTR32V.DLL
Bytes:
85 C0 74 0A BD 09 00 00 00
Replace the 74 byte to EB, so that the sequence looks like:
85 C0 EB 0A BD 09 00 00 00

This is a great thread, and exactly what I'm looking for, but this looks like it's geared towards only the version of the power manager software from Windows 7. Does anyone know the right file to patch (or what to patch, for that matter) for XP, which is version 1.99i? Thanks in advance for any help, and to rrtdj for his ideas.

I haven't tried it yet, but in XP you need to check in:
C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\Utilities\PWRMGRTR.DLL and search for the same string.
Assuming you only need to replace the 74 with EB here as well, and you should be done.
Don't have a 'fake' battery to test this out.

Hmmm....found that file, but none of the byte sequences seem to match the byte sequences in the posts about the Windows 7 versions. If anyone does come up with the proper byte sequence for XP, I'd be very much obliged.

Search for: 85 C0 74 0A BD 09 00 00 00
I found it in the line starting at 00005F28
(32-bit XP-Pro)

That worked, thanks! Rebooted into safe mode, edited the file, and now my cheapo-battery indicator is gone.

Great info rrtdj!!

Here's a little tool I created for patching the DLL: Patcher

It tries to automatically find the location of the DLL using the path found under the key
[HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\PwmEWSvc]\ImagePath

You can also supply your own path in the 1st parameter
e.g. PM_Patcher.exe c:\temp

I patched an x61s running PM v3.62 on win7 x64, it works great!

This is not working XP version 1.99i, does someone to do the same Patch version 1.99i?

Update your (outdated) version...

I was under the impression that 1.99 is the latest version of Power Manager for XP.

Version 3.62 is available only to Vista/Win7.

The latest version of XP is 1.99i.

Actually it's 1.99j.
My (XP-Pro 32-bit) version (as referred to above) is 1.95.
I have no intention yet to update just for this, sorry.

rrtdj wrote:Version 3.61 patch:

Alas, this might turn into a neverending support burden but: has anyone deduced the appropriate hex string for the relatively new 3.62 version? It unfortunately seems to not conform to the 3.61 code.

Art

A few posts up someone posted a patch for 3.62 that I can confirm works

bugmn wrote:A few posts up someone posted a patch for 3.62 that I can confirm works

My T61 happens to be the 32 bit Windows 7; the neat little utility must only be for 64 bit as it doesn't find anything.

Art