Has the charge controller on my T23 given up the ghost?

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rangerpretzel · #1 Post by **rangerpretzel** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:09 am

I have a nice T23 (1.2 Ghz w/ 1400x1050 screen) that I still really enjoy using. It's not quite as nice as my T42p, but I like it a lot because of 1Ghz+ rating and hi-res screen (and it has an actual serial port that I use on a regular basis to control different devices that only have a DB-9 interface.)

Unfortunately, I noticed that the battery life on my one generic knock-off battery was getting lower and lower. Similarly, the two genuine IBM batteries that I had were also nearly useless. So I tried to get one of them refilled at BatteryRefill.com -- I followed their instructions and charged the battery fully to 100% and then put the laptop in "Safe Mode" and let the battery discharge completely to 0%. (I now think this is a mistake on their part to tell people to fully discharge batteries to 0%. 1%? Sure, but not 0%.)

Now my laptop refuses to charge any battery that I put in it. I have 4 batteries. A genuine IBM with a 62% charge, a generic battery with 0% charge, one BatteryRefill with no charge at all, and a second BatteryRefill with 0% charge (they sent me a second one to help me diagnose the problem...)

In 3 of the 4 scenarios, the Battery Maximizer program in Windows XP says that the batteries are "charging" and the voltage is ~ 11.4v, but they all draw zero current/power, so they don't actually ever charge. (In the other situation, the battery just sits there inactive.)

Is there anything I can do about this? I'd really like to get this T23 working again.

Btw: Long before any of this started happening, I had upgraded both the Embedded Controller and the BIOS firmware to the latest revisions without any problems (1.06 and 1.18, respectively.) Most recently, to see if I could affect a change, I tried downgrading the Embedded Controller from 1.06 to 1.03 and the BIOS from 1.18 to 1.17, with no luck.

Thinkpaddict · #2 Post by **Thinkpaddict** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:56 am

Welcome to the forums

That sounds like the same problem I have in one of my T23s. All of a sudden it stop charging the battery. I tried using a different battery, but no dice.

From what I have read in the net, it seems indeed that your charging circuit is dead. If there's a solution to the problem it obviously is a hardware solution. I've been trying to find out if the charging circuit can be bought separately in the Internet, but I haven't had much luck. Maybe I haven't tried hard enough. It would be great if someone who had this same problem and solved it could chime in. Is there a source of these circuits, and how is the uninstall/install procedure? Definitely there should be some soldering involved, but hopefully it's not too bad.

I am using that T23 now in a Dock II all the time, since the laptop works fine off of AC power. But it would be really nice to have the freedom to take it off the wall. Like Moses said: Let my Thinkpads go!

So if anyone with some experience solving this problem can shed some light on it, thanks in advance!

Regards.

rangerpretzel · #3 Post by **rangerpretzel** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 8:44 am

Hey thanks for the welcome. Yeah, I love my Thinkpads. I should probably hang out here more often...

That's unfortunate about the charge controller. I really like this T23. Almost more than my T42p. I was really hoping to breathe new life back into it by getting a new battery.

I agree that the solution seems to be hardware based. Unfortunately, I'm not really interested in spending more than $100 on it. I've already spent $400 for the laptop and $50 for the replacement battery. Spending any more would be throwing good money after bad.

I guess I could always just install Debian or Ubuntu on this laptop and stuff it in my wiring closet and use it as a very-low-power file server. (I hate leaving my other Linux server on full-time because it uses 120 or so watts all the time.) This laptop has a 60GB hard drive and probably only draws 20 watts or so.

Anyway, yes, if anyone has more information on this problem and has a good solution, I'd love to hear it.

Website · #4 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:47 pm

If it helps, I have picked up two different T23 system boards on eBay for less than $100 shipped each.

#5 Post by **rkawakami** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:20 pm

Thinkpaddict wrote:I've been trying to find out if the charging circuit can be bought separately in the Internet... <snip> It would be great if someone who had this same problem and solved it could chime in. Is there a source of these circuits, and how is the uninstall/install procedure?

The one time I've had my T23 motherboard out of the chassis I did not notice any type of removable sub-card. My assumption is that all of the components (not just a single part) that goes into the charging circuit is on the motherboard. Any one of them can fail and lead to a non-charging laptop. It could be anything from a simple resistor opening (being non-conductive) to a voltage regulator. As I've tried before to locate schematics for any Thinkpad, and have come up empty, the only way of figuring out if this is related to a common part/parts issue is to examine a couple of boards that exhibit this problem.

rangerpretzel · #6 Post by **rangerpretzel** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 8:17 am

tfflivemb2: Actually, yes, that does help. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I need to replace the motherboard. Oh sad day.

So I will probably need a working motherboard.

Would you be willing to sell a good, working one to me?

Website · #7 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 8:45 pm

rangerpretzel wrote:tfflivemb2: Actually, yes, that does help. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I need to replace the motherboard. Oh sad day.

So I will probably need a working motherboard.

Would you be willing to sell a good, working one to me?

If I had a working spare one, I would. You can find them on ebay if you search by the part number that matches your system. Note: some models require a specific board.

Thinkpaddict · #8 Post by **Thinkpaddict** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 9:39 pm

rangerpretzel wrote:Hey thanks for the welcome. Yeah, I love my Thinkpads. I should probably hang out here more often...

This laptop has a 60GB hard drive and probably only draws 20 watts or so.

Yeah, if you like Thinkpads this is the place to be!

Actually, with the LCD turned off, the T23 should draw closer to 15 watts. Good if you want to save on the power bill

Thinkpaddict · #9 Post by **Thinkpaddict** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 9:42 pm

rkawakami wrote: The one time I've had my T23 motherboard out of the chassis I did not notice any type of removable sub-card. My assumption is that all of the components (not just a single part) that goes into the charging circuit is on the motherboard. Any one of them can fail and lead to a non-charging laptop. It could be anything from a simple resistor opening (being non-conductive) to a voltage regulator. As I've tried before to locate schematics for any Thinkpad, and have come up empty, the only way of figuring out if this is related to a common part/parts issue is to examine a couple of boards that exhibit this problem.

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, I had the feeling that the charging circuit is not pluggable/removable. I just hoped that it was all into a component that could be unsoldered/resoldered as a whole. All in all, maybe too much trouble.

Has the charge controller on my T23 given up the ghost?

Has the charge controller on my T23 given up the ghost?

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