A31P blinking battery light

[ScottWitte]

The battery light on my A31P is flashing orange with both replacement batteries I've tried. But the original, tired old battery keeps a steady light and charges to green. It just doesn't hold enough charge anymore. What is going on?

Both replacements (different manufacturers) were those 4400mAh after market batteries that seemed like such a great deal. If I recall correctly both seemed to charge to full capacity and a green light. Battery info indicated everything was fine. I would use the battery for a while and suddenly charge would drop to something like 5% (from maybe 80-90%). It might recharge to 9x% but the same thing would happen. After a short time remaining charge jumps down to almost nothing. Plus, the battery light now blinks orange.

Drop in the old battery and everything is fine, except the diminished capacity due to age.

[ramcelroy]

I have the same behavior on the after market replacements I purchased but this did not occur on the OEM replacement I purchased.

[ScottWitte]

I have the same behavior on the after market replacements I purchased but this did not occur on the OEM replacement I purchased.

Uh-Oh. Is this a known issue with after market replacements? I'm curious why?

[vkim]

Hi,
Just a week ago my genuine IBM battery did the same. The power manager had been indicating the poor condition of that battery before. And now it is pretty much dead and my A31p will not even power on on battery.
Good news though that with this dead battery my thinkpad still runs on the full CPU clock with the AC apdater plugged so I don't have to use my good battery.
Thanks,
Val

[ScottWitte]

Just a week ago my genuine IBM battery did the same. ...And now it is pretty much dead and my A31p will not even power on on battery.

If I understand the tech manual correctly the flashing light means either a bad battery or a bad charging circuit. So flashing in this case might be expected.

In my case I'm a bit worried about my charging circuit, which would require a MB replacement even to test, which seems nuts. There should be some way to test voltages and current at the contacts.

[led_snapper]

Do these comps work ok plugged into AC without a battery? One sure-fire way of telling the adapter is working ok.

I have been through several adapters in the 3+ yrs I have had my R31, added an after-market battery recently which I keep charged up for battery only usage and use the old IBM one to serve in case of power interrupts.

[ScottWitte]

Do these comps work ok plugged into AC without a battery? One sure-fire way of telling the adapter is working ok.

I don't think my concern would be with the adapter (which works fine), but rather the charging circuit for the battery (on the MB). Are the after-market batteries not working for me because the charging circuit is going bad or the batteries are bad or incompatible with the A31p or ????

[Vasa]

Hi Everyone,
on my R31 I'm facing something similar... After replacement original battery for new "non-branded" (the original died completely - system did not recognize battery attached) R31 do not charge. If new batt is charged everything works just fine - MaxiMiser shows all the info about battery but when I attach AC - info window says Battery No activity. But funny thing is that Status LED on lid works fine follows schemes. I assumed that my MB charging circuit simply died. God knows why...
To charge R31 battery I use temporary A21 with special harness adapter. So battery itself seems to be OK...

Any idea about this??

Thanks Vasek.

[ElbertR]

Many of these non-oem replacement batteries don't work right. Some will still work, but you can't tell them apart just by looking at them.

Best to only buy IBM batteries, but these are hard to find for a good price. Make sure that if you do buy a nameless 'replacement battery' that you can return it if it doesn't work.

Also these replacement batteries are not a perfect fit compared to the original batteries.

Use the 'battery information' module in the 'thinkpad configuration' program to check out the battery.

If the battery light keeps on flashing, most likely the 'battery information' screen is not able to recognize the battery. If this is so, the charging module can't tell the status of the battery and can't charge it.