thinkpad A31 battery glitch / weird readings???

[ganon11000]

Hey,

I have a thinkpad A31 (Which I love & it plays aoe3 pentium 4 1.7GHz (upgraded?), 768mb ram, 40gb 5400k rpm hdd, DVD ROM, ati mobility radon 7500 16mb.

I'm experiencing a odd problem, I bought a new battery from eBay for £31.49 free p&p and it came today, ran though the charge cycles etc.. And it works for 1.5-2 hours (good enough for me and when checking it apparently has worn away 25% of capacity! Is this because the thinkpad can't accurately read third party batterys???

Or is my battery broken?

The weird thing is that every charge it lasts longer!?

Thanks

[jronald]

1.5 to 2 hours on this power hog is great!
If the battery has been in storage, multiple charges will bee needed to bring it back to full charge. Dont confuse full charge with 100% new capacity, its not the same.
Your fine with a "good" aftermarket battery on the A31, however most aftermarkets are garbage.

The best I ever got out of a normal usage A31 battery was a little over 2 hours.

Ron

[ganon11000]

The battery is brand new with a 30 rtb guarantee and a 1 year warantee (it came yesterday!)

[ajkula66]

OK so it's an aftermarket battery which is not something I'd ever recommend, even for an oldie like A3x.

If you install NHC (NoteBook Hardware Control) it will tell you precisely what the wear level of the battery is. Should you have no use for this program, it's very easy to uninstall.

Good luck.

[ganon11000]

Thanks for the software link, very useful! it too said 25% wear, though it's stayed at 25% so it might stay like that? it's capacity now is 35,530 mWh instead of 47.520 mWh but it's good enough for me (1-2 hours is great for a pentium 4?)

would it damage my A31 to use the after market battery??

eBay link: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290585828097? ... 1439.l2649

[ajkula66]

25% wear is absolutely unacceptable on a supposedly new battery. Return it for a refund.

Generally, I advise against using aftermarket batteries.

[ganon11000]

ok, I''l see if I can, do IBM make batterys for this model anymore / can I get a official new battery??

[ajkula66]

No.

You can find a NOS (new old stock) ones with some patience. I bought a couple of hundred pieces couple of years ago...

[ganon11000]

I can't be bothered & if it's staying at 25% by the end of the 30 day satisfaction garantee I'll keep it.

and is it a good price to power ratio? £31.49 : 35,530mWh?

[ajkula66]

Your money your call.

A new battery should have 0% wear. Period.

[ganon11000]

well the best official I found was £200 so I'm sticking with this as it seems to work,

Thanks for all your help, much appreciated