2nd: A31P, Win2000/XP and a second battery (ultrabay 2000)

Message

friedrich-eugen · #1 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 11:58 am

Hello,

I happen to experience annoying facts:

having bought a second battery in order to extend working time for a A31P ( it was "alive" when it came allowed to load to 100%), I now find it as dead as possible, no revival.

Any hints?

It is to be used with Windows 2000 & XP, I wonder, whether I saw some hints to IBM's ultrabay not working properly with those batteries, but I can't believe IBM does not bother to solve that problem....

Advice would be very much appreciated

Friedrich-Eugen[/i]

friedrich-eugen · #2 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 5:01 am

To add to the puzzle:

I pluged the battery into the IBM-loader: all green lights...

I returned the ultrabay 2000 battery to the A31P-XP-Notebook ...

...the battery shows 98% capacity, is seen on Maximiser - as well as the primary one and administered...

Is the A31P/ Windows 2000 SP4(+) unable to administer a second battery in the ultrabay 2000?

thanks in advance for a hint

Friedrich-Eugen

C.Schlehaus · #3 Post by **C.Schlehaus** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 4:53 pm

Hi,
I use the same combination for extended operation time with Win2K with no problem at all. Both (the system and the Ultrabay battery) show up in the battey maximiser and both are charged as well.
I would have even installed a third one I'm carrying around, but only one Ultrabay could interface with the battery at all..

Sincerely, Carlhermann

friedrich-eugen · #4 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 5:48 pm

All right, CarlHermann,

even more annoying ....

my A31P under W2K does report an errror, and that is it and stays it.

Both machines are latest state (except for XPSP2), the W2K-machine is a 2653-H6G, the XP-machine is a 2653-R5G.

It does only make sense, if either drivers are not 100% functional or corrupted or some part of the w2k-machine is not functional...

Any advice would be appreciated, any time, thanks

Friedrich-Eugen

karn · #5 Post by **karn** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:46 pm

Hello friedrich

This site might not be "perfectly" what you are looking for but here is a guy that ALSO has an IBM A31p and here are his problems with his laptop, perhaps you can email him and see If he has had any problems similar to yours, (just a thought)

http://zurich.ai.mit.edu/hypermail/thin ... /0615.html

Hopr this helps:)

friedrich-eugen · #6 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 3:38 am

Hello Karn,

I'm sorry, I think it will not solve the problem. Meanwhile I happened to run over a thread on the latest Bios & embedded controller-issue, which discusses exactly the problem, I ran into.

IBM up to now has not responded adequately ...

Thank You for the link

stingbandel · #7 Post by **stingbandel** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:55 pm

Hi,

I read your comment on my thread. So when you use the 1.05 BIOS, does it still give you the problem?

I am using Win XP SP2 and the problem still there.

I am not sure if it's microsoft's fault.

I think it's more to either the BIOS or the embedded controller issue.

Could you tell me which battery is used first when you unplug the power? The ultrabay one or the main one?

If I am not mistaken, before I use this BIOS (1.09), the main battery is used first then when it's empty it will go to the ultrabay one.

Since I use the new BIOS, it uses the second battery first then suddenly turn off the machine without changing to the main battery when it is already finished.

What is confusing is sometimes it does change from the second battery to the main battery.

Let me play around with the BIOS and see which BIOS is not working.

If I can find it, is there anyway you can contact IBM to solve this issue?

I am not currently in the US as my study time is done.

There is no way I can contact people in Indonesia as their IBM support sucks.

Thanks

friedrich-eugen · #8 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:31 am

Good Morning Stingbandel,

Thank You for Your hint, I do agree on the problem being related to bios&controller first, but it seems to relate to the operating system as well.

As my (our) two A31Ps are both still under warranty, I do have the chance to contact IBM, they did respond, too, but inadequately. Both are on latest bios, controller, drivers, software-patches.

As our two A31P are of different make (mine a h6g, my wifes a r5g, mine a h-bios type, my wife a n-bios type, mine a Windows 2000-, my wifes a XP-machine) it is not possible to simply test against bios-versions or operating systems.

As I do remember, the xp-n-type machine does first use the 2nd battery in the ultrabay-slot. Up to now, I did not allow the laptop to run down to 0 on both batteries, so I do not know the behavior at nearly 0 load.

My windows-2000-h-type machine does not recognise (!) the 2nd battery properly, it just reports error and therefore does not make any use of it.

stingbandel · #9 Post by **stingbandel** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 1:44 pm

Hi,

this is the latest information that I can give for now.

I have tried my machine for the last 2 days and the second battery works fine.

What I do is I go to the BIOS page and load the BIOS default. If I am not mistaken F10 will do it.

After that, I haven't had problem with the battery so far.

This is using the latest BIOS 1.09 with 1.01 controller.

Let me do more testing to make sure if BIOS setting was the problem with it.

Maybe 3 or 4 more days would do it.

Thanks

friedrich-eugen · #10 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:15 am

Good Morning Stingbandel,

thank You for the info, could You interpret the result in terms of logics behind?

Thank You once again

khamsin · #11 Post by **khamsin** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 12:24 pm

After a bios upgrade it is always advisable to load system defaults. All bios updates carry their own system defaults. Certain function need different setting after an upgrade. Failure to do so faulty (old) parameters might still be in place. A major source of trouble is the ACPI bios that many laptop manufacturers publish. Often the bios is not properly byte aligned. That means the wrong offsets are given for the location of the parameters. A new or old bios might or might not take into account that the offsets are wrong.

Basically it means that a new bios needs to place all its parameter at offsets it know about.. Loading bios defaults helps in this regard. Also the ACPI drivers that come with the OS aometimes also has wrong offsets.

What could have happened is that version one of a tool said use offset three to say "yes use the battery" but the bios is now programmed to use offset four. I.e the BIOS reads offset 4 but your tool uses offset 3. When you use your tool it reads and writes at offset 3. The laptop bios reads and writes at offset four. This is a case of tool and bios mismatch. Unfortuantely this happens more often that most of us would like.

Khamsin

stingbandel · #12 Post by **stingbandel** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 5:19 pm

hi,

give me 2 more days to do more testing.

I've been running it with the second battery with no problem.

not sure what I have done except load the BIOS default.

What annoys me is in BIOS setting, the vga setting is pci not agp.

I'll update you in 2 days with the details.

friedrich-eugen · #13 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:33 am

Hello Stingbandel,

I'm back at home, after having seen the clouds from above and within,
the rain wetting us all over, let me know, what You have been able to find out!!

BTW: my BIOS-settings are agp first, too, as I think the nb-graphics-card is an agp-one, isn't?!!

stingbandel · #14 Post by **stingbandel** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:54 pm

ok, the testing is done I guess.

I use the default setup on the BIOS and everything seems to work normal.

The only thing that annoys me is that the default BIOS set the screen as PCI not AGP.

I don't know if that's the main issue why we get all sort of the problems or not.

But try to use the default setup first and see if that solves your problem or not.

Let me know if this will work or not.

Darno

friedrich-eugen · #15 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 5:29 am

Hello Stingbandel,

IBM has posted new bios- and controllerversions, have You tested it yet?

Has anyone else a clue, what

This BIOS version will work with Embedded Controller(ECP) version 1.03
(Fix) CPU Microcode is updated.
(New) New type VRAM support

is meant to mean ?

stingbandel · #16 Post by **stingbandel** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:58 pm

the new controller didn't solve the problem at all. Still having problem with the second battery on the ultra bay slot. The second battery doesn't want to charge at all. Haven't tried with the floppy but will do it.

Maybe people who live in the US can call their CS and ask why they keep releasing newer controller without even testing it first.

friedrich-eugen · #17 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 6:12 am

Hello all,

(1) I can confirm that, by downgrading to embedded controller versions 1.01 on both types of 2653 (G-type-Bios and N-type-Bios) under both types of Windows (2000(SP4+) and XP(SP2+), a second battery in the ultrabay-slot (left) will be properly recognized and used.

(2) Finally IBM called me and has promised to escalate my case, if downgrading the controller does, what I just wrote it does.
That is, I do expect that IBM is going to correct the faulty controller- and/or bios Versions (i.c. o. earlier compensating bugs):

Guten Tag,

wie verabredet habe ich den "embedded controller" zurückgesetzt auf die Version 1.01, (für beide Notebooks mit beiden Bios, Controller und Windows Versionen):

second battery in ultrabay-slot wird richtig erkannt !

D. h. m. E. - wenn es sich nicht um eine (un)glückliche Verkettung zweier Fehler (in Controller oder/und Bios) handelt, die sich in Version 1.01 noch kompensierten - dass die Versionen ab 1.01 in diesem Bereich des Batterie- bzw. Power- bzw. Lademanagements Fehler eindeutig enthalten!?!!

MfG und der Bitte eine Berichtigung der controller und/oder Biose zu erreichen

I'll let You know

friedrich-eugen · #18 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 1:28 pm

Hello All,

I've got NEWS:

IBM called me this morning at my office

to let me know,

- that they did escalate "my case",
- that IBM in Japan is dealing with the problem and
- that a corrected version of the embedded controller software will probably be published soon... ':D'

They know (and seem to accept), that I 'll post the information with thinkpads.com, as I did refer to threads here several times and I told them so.

Let's wait - a little bit longer - and see

Addendum:

friedrich-eugen
Joined: 24 May 2004
Posts: 53
Location: Rohlfshagen (Schleswig-Holstein), Germany
Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 8:25 pm Post subject: bios, second battery and IBM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hallo Zeitgeist,

I saw IBM posting the patched controller, Friday I think, but I did not yet have time to test it . And I havent seen a corrected version for both types of bioses and both types of updating-technique (diskette, non-diskette).
...
Let' s test and see

P. S.: As it is, IBM has redone all controller-software for both systems (N and G) but missed changing Date and Version for the non-diskette-G-embedded-controller-link. Although it says 2004-11-15, it actually is 2004-12-17 and version 1.04.

So after all, both types of machines and both OS (XP and 2000) may now be tested...

friedrich-eugen · #19 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 8:54 am

A happy new Year to all of You ...

...

Embedded Controller 1.04 (both versions) solves the problem ...

happy trails

friedrich-eugen · #20 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 2:37 pm

Hello all,

since two days an update of the embedded controller software (V.:1.05) is "online". It is said to fix problems concerning battery care (!) and charging.

I did the update on one of my thinkpads (A31P-N-Type/XP) and in effect found that after the update (now again) the 2nd battery in the the ultrabay 2000 did not charge ... I had to take the primary one off to have the second one charge again (this is a difference to the older problem, as with the 1.03 the second got not charged at all)

Anyone having done the same update and making the same experience? Let me know (I'm already in contact with IBM/...) Thanks in advance

2nd: A31P, Win2000/XP and a second battery (ultrabay 2000)

2nd: A31P, Win2000/XP and a second battery (ultrabay 2000)

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