Best battery for a T41?

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djtopcat · #1 Post by **djtopcat** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 5:01 am

Hi I recently bought a T41 after my 23 went out
seems like the battery doesn't last very long any recommendations
on a replacement battery that I can get more hours out of?
also is the max RAM capability of a 41 Pentium M just 1 gig?
either way this is a sick little laptop very happy so far

thanks

SHoTTa35 · #2 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 8:00 am

you can buy a new 9 cell battery on ebay and from the marketplace here. Don't get those "For IBM" batteries, only get OEM ones. That should give you close to 6hrs of light use on battery power

The T4x series can use a MAX of 2GB. The other memory slot is under the keyboard.

sojourner · #3 Post by **sojourner** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:40 am

Would like to add the following to this thread:

I too have been looking for another battery for my T41. Reviewing posts on batteries I've found MANY people say PANASONIC cells last MUCH longer than Sanyo. I've seen actual pics with number of cycles and remaining battery power and Panasonic cells certainly do better!

(doing a search on the Tx forum [battery panasonic sanyo] will bring the results)

Went looking for a battery last week with Panasonic cells, couldn't find one. If descriptions list any manufacturer at all for cells they'll typically say "Panasonic OR Sanyo". Great.

If you find a battery specifically with Panasonic cells, please let me know where!

ulrich.von.lich · #4 Post by **ulrich.von.lich** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:48 am

I would suggest to get a genuine IBM battery instead of an OEM one. I've heard some accidents caused by OEM batteries. If you have already decided to purchase an OEM battery, make sure the seller has sold many of them and has good feedbacks.

I have a Sanyo cell and a Panasonic one and the former seems to lose its capacity more quickly. I've never had a Sony cell so no comments here. Sojourner, if you purchase it from IBM, you can specify the desired manufacturer. They have different FRU numbers. For the 6 cell battery, they have the same price; for the 9 cell, the Panasonic cell is more expansive than the Sony cell, which is more expansive than the Sanyo cell.

billp117 · #5 Post by **billp117** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 12:08 am

Just to clarify...OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. That means that IBM built the battery. Non-OEM or sometimes "compatible with" are used rather loosely by venders and batteries made in China or other places. I agree the OEM batteries are the best. If they are built by IBM...you know that they have the correct electronics included inside the battery so they can communicate with the internal charging circuitry of the ThinkPad.

I have had good and bad luck with batteries from China. Right now my average is about 50/50. The biggest problem is getting the amber charging led to turn off when the battery is fully charged.

Good luck...Bill

Reference from SearchITchannels.com:

OEM:

- This confusing term has two meanings:

1) Originally, an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) was a company that supplied equipment to other companies to resell or incorporate into another product using the reseller's brand name. For example, a maker of refrigerators like Frigidaire might sell its refrigerators to a retailer like Sears to resell under a brand name owned by Sears. A number of companies, both equipment suppliers and equipment resellers, still use this meaning.

2) More recently, OEM is used to refer to the company that acquires a product or component and reuses or incorporates it into a new product with its own brand name.
Also see value-added reseller (VAR), a similar term applied to the repackaging of software.

LAST UPDATED: 25 Jul 2007

SteveS · #6 Post by **SteveS** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 12:22 am

If the listing includes the actual battery FRU, you can easily tell the manufacturer. From the 26xx series T43 HMM:

6 cell battery - Sanyo 92P1087
6 cell battery - Sony 92P1089
6 cell battery - Panasonic 92P1091
9 cell battery - Sanyo 92P1077
9 cell battery - Sony 92P1073
9 cell battery - Panasonic 92P1069

(sorry for lack of tabs - (WYS in preview pane INWYG)

billp117 · #7 Post by **billp117** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 12:35 am

I totally agree...you will find Sanyo and other brands of cells inside the IBM OEM batteries. The cells are the internal batteries inside the plastic housing. IBM gives a contractor the specification and the batteries must be built to those specifications.

Not beating a dead horse...I think it is safe to say that Toshiba, Sony, HP, and others all have Sanyo and Sony cells inside their OEM batteries. You can be assured that a genuine IBM, Toshiba, and other’s battery is built to the standards required to make the laptop work properly. If you use a non-OEM battery there is no guarantee that it will work totally to the specifications intended. That applies to other products like the exploding Motorola RAZR's that people installed non-OEM batteries. Or the exploding defibrillator that burned up an ambulance in Virginia…they also used non-OEM batteries. “Ya get’s what ya pay fir”.

Bill

sojourner · #8 Post by **sojourner** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:01 am

SteveS wrote:If the listing includes the actual battery FRU, you can easily tell the manufacturer. From the 26xx series T43 HMM:

Thanks SteveS, the tip to look in the HMM was just what I needed to specifically find Panasonic cell batteries. BTW, here are P/N's for Panasonic batteries from T41 HMM:

6 cell battery - Panasonic 92P1060
9 cell battery - Panasonic 92P1061

pianowizard · #9 Post by **pianowizard** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:05 am

djtopcat wrote:also is the max RAM capability of a 41 Pentium M just 1 gig?

You can put in two sticks of 1GB RAM to max out at 2GB total. But I recommend installing just one 1GB stick, which consumes slightly less power than two sticks so that your battery lasts a little longer.

Padhead · #10 Post by **Padhead** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:47 pm

pianowizard wrote:You can put in two sticks of 1GB RAM to max out at 2GB total. But I recommend installing just one 1GB stick, which consumes slightly less power than two sticks so that your battery lasts a little longer.

Wizard, how much power are we talking about here?

pianowizard · #11 Post by **pianowizard** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:00 pm

fparisi wrote:Wizard, how much power are we talking about here?

Very little, like 1 minute, but it can matter. For example you're about to save your document but the battery runs out before you can do so. Having an extra minute of battery life would have prevented that.

That's why my T42 has just one stick of 1GB RAM and I want to leave the other slot empty. Makes the laptop 0.02 lb lighter too!

Padhead · #12 Post by **Padhead** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:07 pm

LOL. They could of used you on Apollo 13.

Perhaps, if data gets cached up into to extra 1GB RAM, then the PC will use the hard drive less often. I would imagine that HD power consumption is lower than RAM.

In fact, I have been looking for a tool that caches part of XP into RAM. They say it makes the machine much faster.

kersten78 · #13 Post by **kersten78** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 3:12 pm

I just got a T40 with an ageing 9 cell battery. From the previous posts, it definitely sounds like Panasonic cells are the way to go--I'll have to hunt for one. I'm still trying to decide if I want to go with a nice flush 6 cell or a bulky 9 cell. Does anyone have experience with replacement 6/9 cell batteries? I'm trying to get an idea how much more time I'd get with the high capacity battery... Not sure if it's worth the added weight. Thanks in advance for any input.

-K

ThinkPad · #14 Post by **ThinkPad** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 3:35 pm

A new OEM 9-cell would do good.

kersten78 · #15 Post by **kersten78** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:54 pm

ThinkPad wrote:A new OEM 9-cell would do good.

That's the direction I've been leaning. Although I can't stand the way it protrudes form the back of the machine--the T40 is so sleek otherwise. Googling, I've seen that best performance is quoted at around 4 and 6 hours for 6 and 9 cell, respectively. I was hoping someone could corroborate this with real-world experience. Anyone? If it's really only two hours, I may opt for the 6 cell to avoid the clunky protrusion... but somehow I doubt that there's that little a difference between the two.

ThinkPad · #16 Post by **ThinkPad** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:07 pm

I was able to get 4 hours on a 9 cell once on a flight. This was when it was relatively new and under minimal settings (LCD dim & radios off)

kersten78 · #17 Post by **kersten78** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:03 pm

Ouch. I wonder where I read 6 hours. Four hours is about as low as I'd want to go, so it looks like I'll have to hunt down a new 9-cell. Thanks for the heads-up TP.

SHoTTa35 · #18 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:16 pm

my 6 cell gave me close to 3hrs normally... the 9 cell i had would push that up to 5hrs minimum.

Padhead · #19 Post by **Padhead** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:27 pm

i bought two new batts. A 9 cell and an ultra bay. I was getting well over 7 hours on a T41 14' XGA with a 7200 rpm HD on battery management low power mode.

kersten78 · #20 Post by **kersten78** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:31 am

Great to hear real-world experience. Since the DVD/CDR drive is so rarely used, an ultra bay battery seems like a viable option. With SHoTTa35 reporting 3 hour 6-cell performance, it almost seems worth the price premium to go with a standard 6-cell + ultra bay to get up to 4+ hours. Egh... It's really silly that I find the extra inch of the 9-cell so offending. Anyway, thanks for the input folks. I'll have to start scouring the OEM sites for batteries.

wvdgaast · #21 Post by **wvdgaast** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:41 am

Interesting thread. So I'm looking for a Panasonic 9-cell battery now, but I'm afraid all I see on Froogle is "refills", or batteries I'm not sure about. I guess I should order it from IBM directly, or would that be too expensive?

kersten78 · #22 Post by **kersten78** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:30 pm

I ended up getting a 6-cell online from Pacific Battery Systems, http://www.pacificbattery.com. I was really impressed with their service. My order was initially placed for the 9-cell extended life battery, but due to supplier/warehouse issues they couldn't give me a definite time frame for shipping. The informed me of this immediately and offered to send a 6-cell Next-Day Air for a discounted price. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I believe the 6-cell was ~$75 and the 9-cell ~$95? I may be wrong on the price, but that should be in the ballpark. Anyway, I'd definitely recommend checking them out.

As I mentioned earlier, the extra protruding inch (and weight) of the 9-cell really drove me crazy and I couldn't be happier with the 6-cell, so Pacific Battery's warehouse issues with the 9-cell turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Anyway, the 6-cell showed up brand new in a sealed box from Lenovo with a mid 2007 manufacture date. Dumping the battery info revealed that it is indeed running Panasonic cells. With the 6-cell, I can run unplugged for 2.5-3.0 hours under normal-to-heavy use with the display set to max brightness (coding/compiling, data processing/image manipulation, web-browsing, etc.). This is on a T41 running Linux, so you may get even better battery performance with some of IBM's bundled Windows power control utilities. I must say, though, that the latest ACPI interface for Thinkpads in Linux is very good--excellent cpu scaling, display backlight management, and working suspend/hibernate.

wvdgaast · #23 Post by **wvdgaast** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 3:46 am

I run Linux too, so I'm actually happy to see your numbers.

Unfortunatelt, that webshop has onlt one kind of battery left now, and it's not an original. They say it's better, but probably just because it claims to have a higher capacity...

Will search a bit more. There must be some original Panasonic battery somewhere.

kosse · #24 Post by **kosse** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 7:27 am

I just ordered one of these a few days ago. It was not cheap but the seller claims it has Panasonic cells inside. I could have gotten 9cell batteries from Hong Kong for less a lot less money but in those adds it was never said what cells were used.

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