Z60m Power Manager Woes - custom Battery Threshold ignored

[Humpa]

I have a Z60m (listed in my sig), and this Power Manager issue has been driving me crazy - but I hate to ask questions.
I want to use a custom battery charging threshold, so I'm using 75% at the moment (or, trying to!).

If I hover over my % remaining guage in my taskbar, it shows that "Charging will start when below 75%", but it also shows "Charging (85%); 1:30 hour to fully charge"

I can go into my Power Manager > Battery Info > Battery Maintenance > and I can change to 70% and then the Battery status will show "inactive" for a few seconds and then switches right back to "Charging".
Rebooting doesn't help either.

I've uninstalled the Configuration Utility (not sure why, but figured it couldn't hurt), and uninstalled the Power Manager Utility and the Power Manager Driver. But it does the same thing once I reinstall them again.

I'm wondering if it is something to do with the order I'm installing, or the particular drivers that I'm installing.

I installed the PM Driver first (since it shows in my Device Manager as an Unknown Device). But the Device Drivers IBM page does not show the PM Drvier (it only shows the Power Manager v1.13c, which doesn't install the PM driver):
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-61506
But you can do a search and find that PM driver (version 1.33) here:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4GXPEG

Then I install the Configuration Utility, I have the latest, which is 1.53. And after installing the Configuration Utility it says you should install the "ThinkPad Battery MaxiMiser and Power Management Features package" - though that link takes you to a page which doesn't list the Z series (nor the T60 series). So I just install the Power Manager (version 1.13c)
But if you look on that Power Manager page, it says you can check your version number like so:
1. Start Power Manager. The main screen will be displayed.
2. Select the About... system menu. The version will be displayed.
But I don't have an "About" button/tab/link anywhere in the Power Manager - and I can't get the version number from anywhere in that utility. I can see the Power Manager Version only by looking in the C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\Utilities\PWRMNG.VER

Am I doing something wrong? Is that Power Manager Driver supposed to be installed when I install the Power Manager utility? Because it doesn't get installed that way for me (I've tried - and I still have to manually update the driver - windows finds that 1.33 PM driver since I've already used it in all these installs/uninstalls).
And why doesn't my Power Manager have the version number like it says on the Device Drivers > Power Manager page?
And in my Add/Remove Programs I show both the ThinkPad Power Management Driver and the ThinkPad Power Manager - is that correct?

My charge threshold seems to be stuck at the default 96%, even though I've set it to 75% and even though it shows correctly as set to 75%. It just doesn't obey that 75% threshold.

Any ideas?

[Humpa]

I hadn't changed the upper limit off of the 100%.
But I just changed the upper limit to 75% and the lower limit to 50% and it seems to be working now.

And now that it is working, I changed the upper limit to 100% and it is working correctly.

Apparently it just needed a kick in the [censored] - must be some sort of bug that causes it to not work until the upper limit is changed at least one time.

I'm going to reboot and mess around with it and make sure that it continues to work correctly.

[Humpa]

Nevermind - it still isn't working.

Once I rebooted, it ignores the lower threshold and always charges up to the upper threshold no matter what the lower threshold is set to.

Arggggh.

[Humpa]

It sometimes ignores the upper limit too.
It has been obeying the upper limit, at least - I have it set to 88% (for no particular reason at all).
But the last time I turned it on, it was at 87% so it started charging and didn't stop till it got to 100% (even though when I hover over the battery gauge it displays that the upper limit is set 88%).

Does the threshold work for anyone?

[Humpa]

Has anyone used the custom battery thresholds?

GomJabbar?

[Talon88]

:::

I have the same Problem.
Don't know if it's because I mostly use AC,
I always take out the batt after fully charged
due to this bug.....!

:::

[GomJabbar]

Has anyone used the custom battery thresholds?

GomJabbar?

Haven't messed with it. I really have no advice to give on this issue.

[christopher_wolf]

I have seen this behaviour before, but I am still somewhat uncertain as to whether or not it is the battery used or the power manager version. At times, I have tested older T4X Series batteries in my T43 and noted that they really either didn't obey the charge thresholds, or wouldn't calibrate correctly.

Sometimes, I fixed it for a particular battery by running through a recalibration and sometimes I solved it by reinstalling the power manager. All the other times, the battery worked fine with the thresholds (98% of the time), or they would randomly choose to follow them...or not (2% of the time).

Have you tried this with another Z60 battery or have you re-installed the power manager?

[Humpa]

Thanks for the input guys.

I have reinstalled the Power Manager several times.
I'll try messing around some more. Maybe try the automatic threshold settings, recondition the battery, etc.

I only have the one 9cell battery, so I can't try a different one.

[Talon88]

:::

I have 2 batt, same problem....!

:::

[krajicek]

Hi,

The same issue on my T60 - custom thresholds ignored...
wondering are there any registry settings or other tweak to make this work... this issue make whole batery maintenance useless

kr.

[krajicek]

mistake, sorry
kr

[krajicek]

hee hee
found it:

here is version 1.40 of TP Power Manager

i have 1.20 on mine. what's interesting is change log:

Summary of changes
Version 1.33 (Certified)

* (New) Support for ThinkPad T60/T60p, X60/X60s.

gonna try it
kr.

[krajicek]

the above link is just driver.

Power Manager itself is here

just tried it. seems to be working with custom thresholds
yay

kr.