New X41

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bartelby · #1 Post by **bartelby** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 5:17 pm

I recently bought an X41 off ebay. It is a wonderful machine - with the possible exception of a 1965 Ducati Dianna Mk III, the nicest physical object I have ever possessed. The slow and small hdd has not so far been a problem. All the software and data I need fit nicely and run beautifully on the new machine. The only problems I have found are (1) battery life is atrocious compared to my old x30. X41's do have a reputation for short battery life and mine is no exception. I am not happy about replacing the four cell with a heavier eight cell battery, but I don't even get two hours unless I turn the screen down to the point where it is nearly illegible. (2) the cursor seems to want to drift toward the left. Is there some way to zero the trackpoint so that the cursor stays where you put it?

cj3209 · #2 Post by **cj3209** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 2:57 pm

Try resetting the battery and the cursor should stop after about 2 seconds; it happens on ALL thinkpads. Otherwise, try re-installing the driver.

CJ

bartelby · #3 Post by **bartelby** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:56 pm

Reinstalling the trackpoint driver seems to have done the trick. Thanks!

So will the cursor start to wander around again as the battery ages?

madcow · #4 Post by **madcow** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:40 pm

how do you reset the battery?

bartelby · #5 Post by **bartelby** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:48 pm

You can do that from the IBM battery maintenance software. I chose not to because "resetting the battery" involves fully cycling the battery - discharging it to zero and then charging it back to 100%. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that a battery has a limited number of cycles in it and cycling it unnecessarily can't be good. If anyone out there actually knows something about this, please share it with us.

pianowizard · #6 Post by **pianowizard** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:50 pm

bartelby wrote:I don't even get two hours unless I turn the screen down to the point where it is nearly illegible.

Perhaps the battery is just old. Go to Battery Maximiser and find out how much charge the battery holds and what the design capacity is. That will give you an idea of how much it has deteriorated.

bartelby · #7 Post by **bartelby** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:27 pm

The battery seems ok: design capacity is 27.36 WH and fully charged capacity is 27.12 WH - looks like a tad better than 99% of design capacity. Battery is on cycle #4.

j-dawg · #8 Post by **j-dawg** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:28 pm

Cycling the battery supposedly does something about the buildup of some crystals in the dilithium hyperdrive motivators or whatever. Something chemistry-related. I don't know how true all that is, but it does give your battery meter a chance to "re-calibrate" and give you better estimates on time remaining.

KillBill · #9 Post by **KillBill** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:37 pm

have the battery rebuilt.

bartelby wrote:I recently bought an X41 off ebay. It is a wonderful machine - with the possible exception of a 1965 Ducati Dianna Mk III, the nicest physical object I have ever possessed. The slow and small hdd has not so far been a problem. All the software and data I need fit nicely and run beautifully on the new machine. The only problems I have found are (1) battery life is atrocious compared to my old x30. X41's do have a reputation for short battery life and mine is no exception. I am not happy about replacing the four cell with a heavier eight cell battery, but I don't even get two hours unless I turn the screen down to the point where it is nearly illegible. (2) the cursor seems to want to drift toward the left. Is there some way to zero the trackpoint so that the cursor stays where you put it?

pgoelz · #10 Post by **pgoelz** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:13 am

My X41 with a brand new battery shows about 2:15 to 2:30 remaining on a fresh charge when lightly loaded (CPU at 600MHz) and with the screen brightness at level 2 and WiFi on (Bluetooth off). I would think that your battery life is at least in the ballpark, pending some power management tweaks.

Frankly, I think this is pretty remarkable, all things considered. My old Thinkpad 600 has twice the battery capacity and with a 233MHz PII CPU gets only 50% longer run time.

Paul

bartelby · #11 Post by **bartelby** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:46 am

My battery life is, as you say, in that ballpark - 2:00 to 2:20 hours on a full charge. I was getting closer to three hours with my X30. All of it is totally mind-boggling, of course. How quickly one comes to take for granted how wonderful and strange it is to have SO MUCH computational power available in such a small, easily portable package. Compared to the IBM 1130 on which I cut my teeth, the X41 is an out-and-out supercomputer. Still, it would be great if I could go at least a half day between charges.

Cycling the battery did indeed improve matters a bit - capacity went from 27.12WH to 27.68WH. I am currently cycling the original battery that came with the unit. I had given it up for dead since its max capacity was down to 11WH. It was about three years old and had never been cycled. Perhaps cycling it will bring it back from the dead.

pianowizard · #12 Post by **pianowizard** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:53 am

bartelby wrote:My battery life is, as you say, in that ballpark - 2:00 to 2:20 hours on a full charge. I was getting closer to three hours with my X30.

That's not surprising at all. The X30 battery has 6 cells versus the X41's 4 cells.

asiafish · #13 Post by **asiafish** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:04 am

I used to get about 2:30 with my X41 and 4-cell, and 5:10 with the 8-cell.

lamls · #14 Post by **lamls** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:26 am

y want long time using ,buy a X40 , actually, X40 is a better one if 'you don't like a 8 cell battery , X40 still have 30% battery left when X41 run out of the battery.
good luck !

New X41

New X41

Re: New X41

good!

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