battery suddenly stalls charging at 85% (Win8)

[tpprynn]

I've just bought a lovely X200. I tried Ubuntu on it first and then Windows 8. I saw it charge up to 100% twice I think, and I saw using BattStat that the battery has almost all it's intended capacity. This evening with both Windows 8 and Ubuntu (run on this second occasion from a live DVD where before it had been installed, on an SSD) the battery does not seem like it will charge further than 85% yet is still showing the same BattStat capacity figures.

The only thing I can think that was possibly undesirable is that I had a visitor come and during that visit I left the laptop running, and don't know if it ran down or went into sleep mode - I don't know the machine's behaviour yet.

There are references to X200 batteries being a lottery. This one seems to be one of Lenovo's own, and the indicator showed various figures initially of 5, 5 1/2, 6, 6 1/2 hours. I was pretty happy about this especially as last week a laptop only fourteen months old died, one I'd hated for its chipset's antipathy to Linux, its heat and noisy fan and in the first few hours of using the X200 I'd felt glad I'd bought a used machine instead of another almost certainly noisy, hot and fragile 11.6 inch machine.

My main question is: at worst is this about one bad battery - if I get another one (6 cell again), 3rd party, there wouldn't be anything about the laptop itself that will regenerate the same issue will there?

Can it be a Windows 8 driver issue? Except, I did see that 100% indicator first. Incidentally, I installed a power manager from the Lenovo site (shown when selecting Windows 8 drivers specifically) and cannot find any user interface for it if it has one. I can see it's running in Win8 as a service. The Windows power manager is intact.

Might this battery 'behave' if I cycle it the recommended four or so times as if it were new? (as in, run it down, charge it fully). Is it possible that the leaving the laptop running didn't see it run down but merely sleep and so now having begun to recharge the laptop the calibration is a bit off (hopefully not permanently)? I usually know what I'm doing, got good long battery life from two netbooks and two older Thinkpads.

Could it be the charger/mains pack? This too seems to be a Lenovo original.

Could my leaving the laptop going have been involved? I do get admittedly a bit confused by sleep and hibernate facilities and have preferred in my eight years of owning laptops to just switch off a machine - sleep and hibernate still feel like a gimmick. Using Linux a lot of the time I'd find often that these facilities don't work properly even if they do in Windows, so I've not pursued understanding the facilities better.

Here's hoping I don't have a dud. Thanks for all replies.

[precip9]

You should have a user interface. There are two packages that require separate installation:

1. The PWM driver package.
2. The PWM app package.

Perhaps you have only the first one installed?

With regard to the peculiarities of use, I haven't seen anything a user can do that spooks it, or causes the disturbance you have described. When generic batteries are used and swapped, the user-set charge threshold defaults back to 100%.

[91011]

Sounds like the battery is reporting a higher charge capacity than it is able to reach.

I would do a battery reset. it can be found in the TP Power Manager under the Battery tab.

Personally, I pull the SSD or HDD, boot without the AC adapter, run until it dies and recharge.
Then make sure Curent Charge matches Current Charge Capacity using PM.

[tpprynn]

Thanks, could you post me a link to the right Power Manager for Win8, all I can find is the driver. Helpful info though from you both, a good start.

[precip9]

The Win7 power manager works with Win8.

In the one case of comparison I can specifically recall, the radio managers, Wifi and Bluetooth on/off, for Win 7 and 8 differ only in style. The Win 7 has the traditional fixed black window activated by F5. The Win8 version gives it to the OS in a way I would not prefer.

So, by installing the Win7 versions of these Lenovo utilities, the environment more resembles Win 7, which is to my preference.

[tpprynn]

The Windows 7 Power Manager is refusing to run with Windows 8. I did okay it to run with compatibility settings when it griped but it still didn't work.

I did an overnight charge and this did not stall at 85%. Weird stuff. I'll do another two overnight charges and hope for the best. I did notice that when first running with Windows 8 (although I think also with Ubuntu 13.10) that the laptop reported being at 100% for ages until dropping, it's like it's not being read right. It seems to be a Lenovo battery too.

I'll see how it goes but I'm puzzled by how we got different results trying to run the Win7 manager. There's only one listed on the Lenovo site too.

[precip9]

May we have the details on how PM failed? Error messages, codes, silent abort?

[tpprynn]

I think things are fine now. I decided to reinstall Windows 8 as I was a bit concerned I had chaotic or incorrect drivers in place going by various behaviours. I manually installed the power manager the second time round rather than just okaying the install after running the setup file, using the Windows 7 compatibility.

I've found the rest feature for the battery and will do that tonight.

I'm assuming that there isn't a real need to install the fingerprint reader if it's not going ot be used. As that led to the windows 8 system sounds being continual for whatever reason I'd rather not install just for the sake of getting rid of Device Manager exclamation mark.

Presumably some more Windows 8 drivers will appear in time but everything essential is going well now. Nice machine, can't imagine being as satisfied with anything new costing two or three times as much.

Thanks.