Problem with T43 battery

[nanodario]

A couple of days ago, I bought an used T43 which is in a very good state. During first use on battery (not fully charged, about 50%), Windows XP says to me "Remaining life time: 3 hours and 40 minutes". I thought "Wow ! I have bought an used notebook with an excellent battery". But when the life time reaches 1 hour, computer did a beep, the battery indicator became orange and Windows goes to stand-by. So I tried to do a full charge of battery but it stoped to 65%, and Windows says "1 hour and 50 minutes remaining". I did another full charge (this time the battery reached 100%) and the battery life time dropped to 1 hour and 30-40 minutes.
Is the battery damaged (I think so )?
Where can I found a new ORIGINAL (IBM or Lenovo) battery for this T43? How much it might cost?

Thanks to everybody...

[Thinkpad Lover]

Hello and Welcome to the Forum.

What you are describing is a normal set of events for an old Li-Ion battery which hasn't been properly charged/ used for a while. I assume this is a Genuine I.B.M. battery with "I.B.M." name printed on it? No, I don't think your battery is "damaged," just old LOL. It sounds like you have "re-conditioned" it a bit by fully charging/ discharging it a couple of times. It seems your actual battery life is about 1 hour 30 minutes.

After fully charging the battery, use the laptop normally and once again observe how the battery behaves. If it does indeed last about about an hour and a half under normal use, and then a message pops us warning you to plug in your battery when it shows about 10 % remaining, then be happy with that. Don't expect 4 hours unless you purchase a New, Genuine battery. If battery meter shows a lot of time remaining but the laptop cuts off into Stand-by without warning, then perhaps a few more charge/discharge cycles will get your battery to behave more nicely, but it's probably on its last legs More battery care tips here: http://batterycare.net/en/guide.html#descTot

If you don't have "Lenovo Power Manager" installed on your laptop, install it right away. It will give detailed stats about the health of your battery. Don't just depend on the battery icon in Windows. Let us know if you need the link for Lenovo Power Manager. I think it's posted on the Forum here somewhere.

Too bad U.S.P.S. has banned international shipment of Li-Ion batteries: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=104014
I sometimes ship batteries to established Forum Members overseas directly, or via a forwarding service. U.S.P.S. may allow shipments starting again in January. In the meantime we can ship via the more costly U.P.S. or Fed Ex.

I have Genuine I.B.M./ Lenovo T43 batteries at a nice price here:
x200,x60T,x61,T43,x41 Tablet,T60,T61,R61,T400 BATTERY: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=99121

Arrivederci
Daniel.

[nanodario]

Hello and Welcome to the Forum.

Thank you

Thank you for information you gave me. Today I read that on battery there is written "Guasta" (damaged). I have 30 days of warranty on battery, so I decided to point out to seller my problems and that writing.
Anyway, I installed Lenovo Power Manager and it tells me:
designed capacity: 51.83 Wh
fully charged capacity: 30.88 Wh
cycles number: 69
first date use: 2006 - 06
manufacturer: Panasonic
FRU P/N: IBM-92P1091

Is it possible that a six years battery has been charged only 69 times? (I did 4 - 5 charge the past 4 days)

PS: I'm really thinking to buy a 9 cell battery and I saw that you are selling that...
PPS: Do you send in Europe?

[Thinkpad Lover]

Is it possible that a six years battery has been charged only 69 times? (I did 4 - 5 charge the past 4 days)

Yes it is. Especially with corporate (former company machines) that have been lying in storage for a while. However, this can lead to this kind of unpredictable battery behavior...

The one you have, with a Design Capacity of 51.83, is a 6-cell battery. And to have a Full Charge capacity of 30.88 is pretty good for a 6-year old "grandpa" battery.

However, if you have a warranty or promise of some sort from the seller that he would provide a better battery, it won't hurt to contact him

PS: I'm really thinking to buy a 9 cell battery and I saw that you are selling that...

As for me, yes, I have some excellent, New (old stock) 9-cell Genuine I.B.M. T43 batteries. They show an estimate of 6 hours after a full charge, so that's pretty cool:
x200,x60T,x61,T42,x41 Tablet,T60,T61,R61,T400 BATTERY: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=99121

As for shipping them overseas, see my post above where I explain about our Postal Service regulations and my policy about overseas shipments. If you have a relative living in the U.S. or a forwarding service (within the U.S.) that I could send the battery to, that might be OK. They could then find some shipping method to get the battery to you, or bring it with them on their next trip to Italy: http://safetravel.dot.gov/definitions.html and http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/ ... eries.shtm

Send me an email (see my signature below) and we can talk about it.

Daniel.

[nanodario]

Today I'll go to point out to seller my problems. Anyway, the battery capacity dropped to 30.81 Wh (after 2 or 3 charges).

[nanodario]

Finally the seller replaced my battery with a new (non genuine ) 6 cells battery. Now the its lifetime is about 3 - 3.5 hours

[erp52]

Newbie here, I just purchased a t43, and know the battery is either dead or severely discharged. After reading the previous posts, I'd like to know how to find out if the battery is definitely shot. I'm not familiar with the procedure of charging/discharging. I thought all one had to do is plug it in, green light on, and it's good to go. Is there an indicator somewhere in the computer that tells me how much it's charged? And if so, where is it? Thanks for bearing with me as I am not computer literate. Ed