Battery ID software for T-61 and T-520

[wsalomon]

Recently, I needed to pick up some new 33+, 44+ and 55+ batteries. The usual question came up as to identifying "real" Lenovo batteries vs. knockoffs. I remember in the past some utility that was able to give almost all of the ThinkPad battery info. If I remember correctly, it would give the FRU #, the long serial number starting with 11S, the number of charge cycles, perhaps even the version number of the battery controller firmware. Batteries claiming to be Lenovo would not do this and would give a short serial number, etc. (Particularly suspect were two 55++ batteries with identical serial numbers in the usual local, and with another label with 5 digits, and a read-out serial number that had nothing to do with either).

Does the Lenovo Diagnostics do this? Might this a been a Linux utility that I might have made bootable?

Any thoughts? And thanks in advance.


(This is a re-asking of a similar question 3 years ago - before I acquired the T-520, and with a change in Lenovo's software tools.)

[dr_st]

On Windows , such battery information is built into the Lenovo Power Manager, and the Battery part of the Lenovo Settings / Vantage / whatever their modern app is now called. There may be some generic battery utilities that can display similar information, since in the end it all comes from the battery's embedded controller and any software that knows how to read it can get that info for you.

[wsalomon]

Thanks!

The Vantage utility is a Windows 10 Modern App - 85 MB found at the Windows App Store, which also downloads the Lenovo_Vantage_System_Interface_Foundation driver of 358 MB. The battery section does report out the the battery label string following the 11SxxTxxxxZ prefix, the date battery manufactured, first placed into service, firmware version etc.

The ThinkPad Diagnostics is much abbreviated much like what the generic Win 10 power settings will read.

Interestingly, the Vantage System Update tool found nothing, but the ThinkPad System Update tool did.