Docking station doesn't charge battery?

[Olwe]

I've got a T410 in a docking station and I just got it a new lithium battery. But then the amber light is blinking, as if it's discharging or whatever. I shut it down, pop it out of the dock, and plug it in directly, and, lo, then I see the green battery light slowly blinking. I'm guessing that when the slab is in the dock it doesn't charge the battery, and when it's directly plugged in, yes, it is finally charging. Correct?

[dr_st]

Amber light blinking means charging and less than 20%.

Green light blinking means charging and between 20% and 80%.

Source: Thinkpad T410 Hardware Maintenance Manual

[Olwe]

My new battery for my T410 doesn't seem to charge. When I got it out of the package, I shoved it in a running machine. Did I potentially short it out? It was in a docking station when I did this.

[dr_st]

I never tried shoving a battery while running on the docking station, but I don't think it should short it out. If the battery does not charge, it may be defective. Or maybe it's the charging circuit on the T410 that's defective.

[Olwe]

Any idea how to trouble shoot this? Battery bad or charging circuit?

[dr_st]

Short of getting another, known good battery and/or another, known good laptop - I don't know.

It is possible to test everything with external equipment, but I am not the person who can tell you exactly how to do it.

[Olwe]

I did shell out for a new docking station for it. The first one had some sort of short in it where if you jostled it, one of my monitors would go dark. Wiggle it again and it would come back on. The sound off the dock had a buzz in it too. I plugged the sound back into the t410 itself and sound was good again. That made me think it was the dock that was overall bad. But there must be some test to see if a battery is bad/shorted out.

[dr_st]

What you describe (finicky monitor output, buzzy/staticky audio output) is a known issue with T410 and the docks, and I am inclined to believe it is more the laptop's fault and less that of the dock.

[Olwe]

Ouch! I wish I'd known that before. Couldn't be helped, I guess. Was there any fix for the T410/dock problems?

[dr_st]

I never found any, but can't say I've looked. My T410 is issued to me by my workplace, I use it strictly at work, and don't care much about these issues. Now if it had been a personal laptop, I would have taken them personally and would not rest until they were solved.

The reason I am saying what I'm saying is that I also first assumed it was the dock and had my dock replaced. But the issues persisted. The technician who replaced the dock said that it is a known issue with these laptops (our company used to have a pretty big fleet of them), and although the dock might be at fault, it is more likely the laptop.

I'm not sure about the finicky monitor/USB connection issue, but at least the static seems to be fairly widespread, as I also tried a colleague's T410 in my docking station, and the static noise through the audio port on the dock was there.

No such issues when using the built-in jack on the T410 chassis.