T400 - Ultrabay Battery won't work

[timtakpad]

Hi,

T400 running Win7. I've this battery pack 57Y4536 which won't work anymore. It wasn't in use for months so it may have drained out I guess. The power manager says it can't detect the battery and marked as "error"

Yes it did work on T400 as I had used it a few times.. been a few months since then though. It's a genuine Lenovo battery. As soon as I put it in place, the PowerManager does show it as "Second Battery with "Condition X Error". However on the top, it says this

Battery 2 : The battery is not detected. Try reinstalling or recharging the battery to solve the problem.

Is there any way to revive the battery?

Thanks

[theterminator93]

Is the primary battery fully charged? I had this on a new UB battery I just received, but only because it wasn't charging because the primary battery was charging instead. Once the primary battery charged and the UB battery started charging, the error went away.

[timtakpad]

Yes I think so. I will double check that one more time.

Out of curiosity, did you have the red cross mark error in your case when you first put it in UB?

Thanks

[theterminator93]

Exact same error that you mentioned. White battery icon with the big red X in the middle.

[timtakpad]

So I closely watched the PM ( v 6.68.10) battery status tab. As soon as the primary/main battery got 100% charged, the PM seemed moved on to the second UB battery. I could see the condition changed to "Unknown" and status to "Charging" for a sec. After that, the battery condition changed to "Error" and remained as it is.

I tried to do the battery gauge reset on it but it asks me to connect the AC adapter to continue even though it's attached.

In my experience, the PM sometimes does act kinda weird in terms of showing the battery status. I don't have another Thinkpad to validate the UB battery's status. Guess I'll try reinstalling the PM. The device manager does show the UB battery.

Thanks

[timtakpad]

Reinstalling the PM didn't help. Maybe the battery is bad or totally drained?

What's puzzling is that PM won't do the battery gauge reset. It asks to attach the AC adapter which is attached already.
Any idea about the possible cause of this behavior?

Wish I could see the PM logs but don't know if there is one.

[theterminator93]

It's more likely a problem with the battery than with power manager. Unfortunately without a second system to test on - or another known good battery to test in your system, there isn't really a way to know for certain. If the voltage on the battery drops below a certain threshold then power manager refuses to "use" the battery until it gets a change to try and charge it up again. Almost like the battery is totally dead and the onboard firmware won't report anything other than "present" until it gets a charge current.

Will power manager do a gauge reset on the primary battery either with or without the ultrabay battery present? Or does it just fail on the ultrabay battery?

You can try to remove the battery and make sure the device isn't present in device manager, then reinsert to see if the condition changes.

[ji2o0k]

Interesting....apologies OP, I don't have a solution to your problem but will keep tabs on your thread as I have a T420s UB battery that is still working (your thread reminded me to use it)...

But in case I run into the same issue with my OEM battery...

[timtakpad]

So I finally could able to verify that it is UB which is either bad, drained completely or safety shut off. One should use it frequently and don't let it discharge completely.

[TonyJZX]

I have a funny thing to report about my UB.

In my 400s the UB discharges fully FIRST then it goes to the main battery.

This is expected behaviour.

I put the same battery in my 400 and the main battery discharges FIRST then the UB.

This is unexpected.

I suspect most people would prefer this mode of behaviour or more correctly, they would like some mechanism to control it.

I havent seen anything in the power manager to do that.

My Ultrabay battery is in good condition even though it did cop the usual charge. discharge charge thing end on end.