Thinkpads Forum

Ok so this may be an easy common knowledge question but I don't know much and research isn't helping.

My t500 battery dies after about 30 minutes even with low power settings.

My question is is this a problem with the battery or is my computer just sucking power from the battery? The computer is about a year old. I wiped my computer and reinstalled windows and it is still happening. I logically assume that it must be the battery then but just checking here to see if maybe there's a known problem besides the battery before I go out and buy one. Thank you.

How old is your battery? You might want to open Power Manager to what the remaining charge capacity of your battery is and the cycles count is. Both are located in Power Manager.

I'd say you've probably forgotten to install a lot of important (especially switchable) drivers, causing a massive power drain as both the HD3650 and GMA4500MHD are both powered and chugging power. This situation would also produce unusually high amounts of heat as well (For me, TPFC would have GPU read 65C on idle, which is higher than the 62C at load with proper drivers)

Colonel O'Neill wrote:I'd say you've probably forgotten to install a lot of important (especially switchable) drivers, causing a massive power drain as both the HD3650 and GMA4500MHD are both powered and chugging power.

I don't believe it is possible for both GPU's to be running simultaneously. I think the OP needs a new battery and that he should call Lenovo if the laptop is under warranty and it is very close or slightly over the one year mark. The battery itself should have a 1 year warranty.