X60 won't hold power settings / need to calibrate battery

[andrea b.]

My workhorse computer for the past two years has been a used X60 running XP - it came to me with fairly light use, and a (4 cell?) battery that held a charge well (about 2.3 hours). I have 3 other TPs, but this is the one I cart around. Power settings are under XP, not ThinkVantage.

Problem one: it doesn't hold my power / critical alarm settings. So on about a dozen occasions, the battery has plunged to 4% in a rapid lurch from around 34%. This is question one - what would be the cause, and the fix? This is more for future reference, because the battery seems shot, as you'd expect. (I wonder too whether there could be some program / something running in the background that periodically eats huge amounts of juice...?)

Problem two: The shot battery - I realize I might just have to say RIP. Yesterday, it discharged completely. (It had 10 minutes of juice after registering 0%) I was curious to see whether it was just the meter that was off kilter, and let it drain. Pushed the power button for good measure, and recharged. Today the meter shows 100% = 2 hours; but it plunges from 94% to 4%, triggering alarm. So question two: how to calibrate this battery? Can't find a utility in XP. I recall doing this in a TP with a utility in TV - and may swap the battery into that machine to check. I went into BIOS and was unable to find a utility.


Thanks!

Andrea

[ajkula66]

Your battery has one or more blown cells and must be replaced, there's no calibration method that will help you.

Once you replace it - preferably with a genuine Lenovo one - the PM settings can be tweaked if there's a need for it.

Good luck.

[andrea b.]

Your battery has one or more blown cells and must be replaced, there's no calibration method that will help you.

Once you replace it - preferably with a genuine Lenovo one - the PM settings can be tweaked if there's a need for it.

Good luck.

That makes sense - and I do expect the thing to fail ultimately.

Figuring I had nothing to lose, I downloaded and installed the ThinkVantage Power Manager (on the recommendation of another troubleshooter.) For whatever reason, the battery appears to be functioning a bit better - I ran it for an hour of normal computing / streaming / downloading, and hit the critical alarm. The meter is out of whack - but I'm not going to risk a reset. Given what this battery has been through, an hour of life seems like a gift. (I've got other batts I can swap in.)

Thanks!

[raket]

This alarm thing, and how long a battery actual holds even though in the critical alarm occours really seems to be different in which kind of machine the battery sits in. I have 3 X6x laptops.

If i put battery in machine 1 (X60,C2d 2.0ghz) it holds about 5minutes then critical alarm, then dies after 2minutes. Same thing if i put it in the X61s..

However.. putting battery it in the X61 machine the machine holds for about one and a half hour with lowest brightening on monitor, 3g phone connected to usb and surfing the web.

I don't know what causes this, but i guess the T7100 sleeps longer then T7200 and L7500. For the record, my X61 shipped with only one minipci-e slot, no bluetooth, obvious no wwan, a ipw3965 (which is cool) . The machine is CTO model if that makes any sense at all.