Page 1 of 1
E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2020 12:31 pm
by bex1210
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad E430. I bought it in 2012. My operating system is Windows 7 Pro (64 bit) SP1. It has Lenovo Solutions 2.2.002, which I have never updated.
I don't use it much, and it is always hooked up to AC power except when I travel. I recently decided to lower the charge thresholds, so it is not always charged at 100%. I went to the Lenovo Solution Center, selected the System option, then launched the Power Manager. Then the Battery tab, and then selected battery Maintenance.
I selected Custom, and set Start Charging at 30%, and Stop Charging at 80%.
When I hover over the battery icon on the bottom of the screen, I get a message which says charging starts when below 30% and stops when reaches 80%.
But it doesn't work. No matter what the % of battery charge, when AC is connected, it immediately starts charging and charges to 100%. I have tested with the laptop booted, or off. I have tested each of those two cases with my network both connected and disconnected. The result is always the same.
Has anyone else used this feature, and if so, does it work? If it does work, any tips for how I can get it to work?
Lex
Re: E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2020 1:27 pm
by BillMorrow
did you reboot..?
Re: E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2020 5:52 pm
by bex1210
BillMorrow wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 1:27 pm
did you reboot..?
I have rebooted multiple times, over several days, since I set the charge thresholds. No difference.
Lex
Re: E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:42 am
by RealBlackStuff
Instead get the Lenovo Power Manager 6.68.15
Works perfectly on my T440p with W7-Pro 64-bit.
Re: E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2020 12:58 pm
by bex1210
RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:42 am
Instead get the Lenovo Power Manager 6.68.15
Works perfectly on my T440p with W7-Pro 64-bit.
I have Power Manager 6.16. I checked Battery Firmware update, and was told that 'no update was found'.
As I said in my initial post, I have never updated Lenovo Solutions. Does it have to be updated first?
Lex
Re: E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 12:50 am
by bex1210
RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:42 am
Instead get the Lenovo Power Manager 6.68.15
Works perfectly on my T440p with W7-Pro 64-bit.
I found and installed 6.68.15. Made no difference. My laptop still charges to 100% whenever the AC power is attached, no matter what the battery charge % is to begin with.
I also was getting a message to update Lenovo Solutions (currently 2.2.002), so then I selected the update message. It said it was downloading 3.12.003, which it says is an 82MG file. That screen then disappears, but nothing was updated. Each time I open 2.2.002, I get the update message again. Doesn't matter if the computer has been rebooted or not.
Any thoughts? Is there a source for 3.12.003 that I might be able to manually download and try to get it to install?
Lex
Re: E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:38 am
by RealBlackStuff
Re: E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 12:30 pm
by bex1210
Thanks for the quick feedback. Based on your experience, which of the two options would you suggest?
Lex
Re: E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 12:49 pm
by RealBlackStuff
A big NO to Solution Center.
Re: E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:26 pm
by TPFanatic
Lenovo Solutions probably is not necessary software.
Have you tried fully uninstalling and reinstalling power manager and the power management driver?
If that doesn't fix it, hypothetically the problem could also be the battery itself, you could try doing a battery recalibration that power manager should support or replacing the battery and seeing if the problem persists.
Re: E430 Battery charge threshold issue
Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2020 9:06 pm
by bex1210
TPFanatic wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:26 pm
Lenovo Solutions probably is not necessary software.
Have you tried fully uninstalling and reinstalling power manager and the power management driver?
If that doesn't fix it, hypothetically the problem could also be the battery itself, you could try doing a battery recalibration that power manager should support or replacing the battery and seeing if the problem persists.
I finally had time to do a battery recalibration. It took about 18 hours, I think! On my 1st try, it seems to have done the job.
(I have it set to start charging at 30%, and stop at 80%). I let the computer run until the battery had about 23% charge, then plugged it into AC. It charged to 79% and stopped.
Obviously having checked the option that the software will tell me when to recalibrate is not worth much!
Lex