Thinkpads Forum

Many of the batteries, of the older laptops in my collection, have aged quite harshly. Either I'll get around five minutes runtime out of them, or they're a complete brick. (Not too surprising, considering that some of these batteries are getting up to 10+ years old.) For my T43s, and newer laptops, finding a decent OEM or name-brand battery isn't a problem. Trying to find a battery for a "vintage" system, on the other hand, seems to be next to impossible.

Currently, I'm in the market for a replacement battery for my 770x. Are there any reputable manufactures that still make batteries for these older laptops? If not, what are the options of getting an original battery refurbished? I only ask because my countless hours of Google searching has come up inconclusive. Nobody seems to carry these batteries anymore.

The only re-cell service that I've personally used is: http://www.batteryrefill.com/laptops/ibm/ And that was for 600-series and T23 batteries. This is how it normally proceeds: you ship them your battery, they cut it open, remove the old cells, replace with "modern" cells (generally higher capacity than what was available back then when the laptops were new), glue the case back together (with varying cosmetic results), then return the pack to you. This is the "refill" price. Another option is that they ship an already-refilled battery to you (you get to keep your existing battery). This is a "purchase" price. A third option, for limited types only, is an "exchange". This works similar to the refill service except you get someone else's old pack. You still must send in your depleted battery but the replacement should arrive faster since it's all ready to go.

I recently had to deal with one of these old, vintage batteries myself. I ordered a NOS 560-series battery off of eBay. It arrived with the factory seal still intact. I installed it into a newly arrived 560Z system and almost immediately I detected a smell of burning plastic. I may have burned out the charging circuit on the motherboard. I should have measured the voltage from the NOS battery before trying to charge it (which I did after the fact and it's about 4V). A battery from a 560 system that works for about 5 minutes does seem to charge in the 560Z but I'm going to need a known good battery to figure out what the extent of the damage is. Was thinking about an external battery charger ($40 currently on eBay) which probably won't do any good for either the 4V NOS battery or my 5 minute 560 battery, or a "new" 560 battery from batteryrefill.com at $60. At those prices, I may simply opt to power the 560 systems off AC only (they are basically going to be my EDO memory testers). Like you said, there's not much affordable support for these old batteries. I'm not paying $100 or more for a battery that's going into a system I bought for $40 and has limited use anyway.

rkawakami wrote:The only re-cell service that I've personally used is: http://www.batteryrefill.com/laptops/ibm/ And that was for 600-series and T23 batteries.

Although that's a bit on the expensive side, that may be my only shot at getting a working battery. Depends on how desperate I get.

Do you know if they accept partially disassembled batteries? I only ask because I'd rather be the one who marred the case of the battery instead of blaming it on someone else.

rkawakami wrote: I ordered a NOS 560-series battery off of eBay. It arrived with the factory seal still intact.

That, honestly, would have made me nervous. The newest NOS batteries would be, at best, eight years old. That's way too long for a lithium ion battery to sit around unused.

Didn't the battery in the 770x hold a charge? Or just not enough?

tfflivemb2 wrote:Didn't the battery in the 770x hold a charge? Or just not enough?

It would only hold a charge for about five minutes when I first got the laptop. Now it's completely dead, and the laptop refuses to charge it.

Oh OK. And the original CPU is still coming. Just digging through the small stuff in my office. I think the 600 series screws are interchangeable...I'll research it.

that1nerd wrote:Do you know if they accept partially disassembled batteries? I only ask because I'd rather be the one who marred the case of the battery instead of blaming it on someone else.

I don't know. You could try sending them an email and see what they say. I would guess that they would want an undamaged/unopened battery pack to start with.

that1nerd wrote:That, honestly, would have made me nervous. The newest NOS batteries would be, at best, eight years old. That's way too long for a lithium ion battery to sit around unused.

That's the lesson I learned the hard way. In the past I've powered up other NOS batteries (about 5 to 6 years old) without any problems. In my excitement to to check out the newest 560Z, I neglected to think about what a possibly shorted battery could do.

tfflivemb2 wrote:Oh OK. And the original CPU is still coming. Just digging through the small stuff in my office. I think the 600 series screws are interchangeable...I'll research it.

Actually, I already managed to get my hands on an original CPU for it, so don't worry about that.

As for the screws, I just need the two "short" ones that hold in the DVD encoder card.

that1nerd wrote:

tfflivemb2 wrote:Oh OK. And the original CPU is still coming. Just digging through the small stuff in my office. I think the 600 series screws are interchangeable...I'll research it.

Actually, I already managed to get my hands on an original CPU for it, so don't worry about that.

As for the screws, I just need the two "short" ones that hold in the DVD encoder card.

OK, I think I know which ones they are.