Replace or Rebuild My T30 Battery?

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Lightning · #1 Post by **Lightning** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:26 am

On eBay, I'm seeing replacement batteries for the T30 for around $35 plus around $15 shipping. Don't know if these are reliable, but the specs seem OK (4400 mAh, 10.8v Li-ION).

The flip side is to have the battery rebuilt or do the swap deal. My battery holds a charge for maybe 45 minutes to an hour and the machine is generally sluggish as it slowly loses power too.

I have heard that there are places where you can actually "upgrade" certain types of batteries whereby you'd get nearly double the run time of an OEM.

#2 Post by **rkawakami** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:44 am

The standard IBM battery for the T30 was 4.4Ah (4400mAh):

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 42230.html

so anything that's advertised with that capacity would run just as long as a "factory" battery. Of more concern is the "smarts" inside the battery pack. If the aftermarket battery does not have a compatible system with the IBM ones, then you could expect to have problems with charging the pack and/or getting the charge status (i.e., the BatteryMaxiMiser utility may not work). The rebuild service you mention would take an original IBM battery and replace just the expended cells with new ones. http://www.batteryrefill.com/ is one such company. I have purchased 600-series batteries from them and they have performed as well as, if not better, than the factory units. However, they may exhibit battle scars from the operation (glue, cracks in the pack, etc.).

Lightning · #3 Post by **Lightning** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 11:09 am

This particular vendor is in North Jersey (my old stomping grounds), and his feedback is pretty good considering all the sales. I went through a couple of hundred of them and didn't find a negative about anything although he has something like 299 negatives somewhere in his history of over 100,000 transactions. All the IBM Thinkpad folks that bought batteries from him claimed they worked great. The seller claims 100% compatibility with OEM battery. Here's a quick link:

http://tinyurl.com/yu3epk

#4 Post by **rkawakami** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:20 pm

As long as he/she stands behind the 90 day warranty, that should be enough to determine how well the battery lasts and if it recharges correctly.

To obtain just the negatives and neutrals, go to this site and plug the eBay ID into the first field and click on the "Received By" button:

http://toolhaus.org/

sbelew · #5 Post by **sbelew** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 1:45 pm

I've made 4 or 5 purchases from this seller on ebay. haven't had a problem yet.

Replace or Rebuild My T30 Battery?

Replace or Rebuild My T30 Battery?

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