ThinkPad A31 battery Discharges when laptop is turned off??

[A31]

Hi all, I now have another problem with my ThinkPads would you believe? (it's not becuase i don't look after them! )

Today's problem is that I've now discovered that the battery in my A31 actually discharges when the laptop is turned off when the AC adapter is not plugged in and the battery is still inserted in. I found this out by fully charging my laptop whilist it was turned off, then removing the AC adapter. 20 minutes later, when I turned the laptop on again with no charger plugged in, it wouldn't start, this must mean that somehow the battery discharges when the laptop is turned off with the AC adapter not plugged in and the battery isn't removed. However, if I remove the battery after the laptop has fully charged whilist it is turned off and then insert 20 minutes later, the laptop is fine, starts OK but it doesn't make it to the log in screen as it doesn't have enough power.

I think the solution may be a new battery, but I wondered if you guys had any other solutions to this problem that prefably do not include buying new bits...

I don't know if this will help but these are my specs:

Vista Ultimate
768 MB RAM (am hopefully getting more as it's PAINFULLY slow!)
40GB HDD
Intel Pentium 4
battery is original 2002 spec I think...

Thanks!
A31

[gb_ibmguy]

Yes, it sounds like your battery is toast. Been here done that. What does Battery Maximizer say about the health of your battery? Cycle count, health etc. Yellow or green are good, red can be bad. Although I've had red battery's and followed the Maximizer guide about deep recharging and recycling and brought a battery back to life.

But overall, I'd say you should start looking for a new/used OEM battery, beware of cheap knockoff's, they have a tendency to cause flames.

Good Luck,

Greg