390E - How do you know when the battery is fully charged?

[Turbovend]

I got a bunch of 390E laptops to upgrade. I started to load in the bios upgrade. A couple questions:

When I tried to update the bios, it said: "this process requires a highly charged battery". Understood, but how do I know the level of battery charge? There is no readout on this thing. The 770 series TPs have a nice display so you know exactly how charged your battery is whether the machine is turned on or not.

Also, how do you get to the test section of the bios setup? Again, with the 770s there's a section to test the memory, motherboard, hard drive, and so on. I don't see it here. I also don't see it on my A21m. I'd really like to know what they did with the test section on these.

THANKS!!

[AlphaKilo470]

The battery light is orange when charging and green when fully charged or running off of battery power.

The BIOS is different on the A21 and you'll have to run extra diagnostic software under DOS or Windows or whatever else to test the various components.

Good luck with your 7 ThinkPads.

[Turbovend]

Thanx, I kinda figured that out, but I do prefer the 770 series where is shows an exact percentage of charge with the machine turned off.

I've gone way past refurbishing 7 laptops, I've got at least 20 here now. Just like me, going overboard.

[MJanofsky]

Turbovend-

Have you had any issues with batteries not charging in your 390E's?

I have one and haven't been able to find a battery yet that will charge in it.


Thanks,
Michael

[Turbovend]

No, I bought a bunch of them and the batteries certainly aren't new but they do take a charge. I have not tried to purchase replacement batteries, however. Maybe the batteries you bought are no good--or more likely the charge mechanism in your laptop is faulty.