Thinkpads Forum

Hi All,
My machine is about a year old. I just got my first "encouragement" to replace my battery as follows. I do use the battery power a lot to exercise it, and then recharge to 100%.

With the current system settings and a full charge, your battery can provide 2.0 hours of use. A new battery could provide up to 4.0 hours.

And sometimes that display changes saying it'll provide 1 hour, and that a new batter would provide 2 hours. It looks like it just displays a message when it thinks the battery is 1/2 original strength.

Some questions:
Should I care about this message?

Should I do the full battery reset?

When I buy, should I just go to Lenovo, or are there good 3rd party providers?

Thanks very much!
Dave

Genuine batteries are best but you don't necessary have to buy from Lenovo directly. Sounds like your battery is still useable but not as it once was. I'd run a battery reset via Power Manager. As for replacing it, that depends, if you use it plugged in all the time and only need battery power on occasion, then no. If, like me, you need at least 3 hours of battery useable every day, then yes. At the very least have a new one on standby as the current one could poop out anytime.

Cigarguy wrote:Genuine batteries are best but you don't necessary have to buy from Lenovo directly. Sounds like your battery is still useable but not as it once was. I'd run a battery reset via Power Manager. As for replacing it, that depends, if you use it plugged in all the time and only need battery power on occasion, then no. If, like me, you need at least 3 hours of battery useable every day, then yes. At the very least have a new one on standby as the current one could poop out anytime.

Cigar Guy,
Thanks for your thoughts. I will try the reset.

I'm sort of halfway between those extremes - I don't leave it plugged in all the time, because I've been advised to exercise the battery. But I don't need 3 hours, usually. In fact, I use my battery's running down to advise me to get off my a** and do something else for awhile - I'm a web developer, and it's easy to be a complete physical slug, and I figure that's not good mentally, either.

Funny, my previous lasted almost 5 years, and I never got a warning, nor did I replace the battery, even with the same usage pattern. Fascinating!

I like your idea of the advance spare... I just might do that!
Thanks again, D

If you luck out and get a Panasonic made battery I can see you getting 5 years out of it. Sanyo, not so much. About 2-3 years in my experience. LGC is about in the middle.

Cigarguy wrote:If you luck out and get a Panasonic made battery I can see you getting 5 years out of it. Sanyo, not so much. About 2-3 years in my experience. LGC is about in the middle.

Very interesting, thanks! I'll try to find out where to get those.