X24: battery recognized but won't charge / display lifetime

[nomo]

Hello there,
i just witnessed a very strange problem with my X24.

It was running fine on battery and AC.

I switched it off and unplugged it.
Then I opened the RAM bay on the back, removed the 256mb stick and closed the ram bay again.
Then I tried to switch the x24 on - nothing happened! (It wasn't plugged in at this point).
i plugged in the ac plug and switched it on - it boots without problems.
i pulled out the ac plug, the x24 immediately switched off.

then i put back the ram stick, tried to run on battery: no success.
booting with ac plug works fine.

in windows, i started RMClock to check the battery status. It reports maximum capacity, designed capacity etc just like before.

But there isn't any sign that the battery is charging. RMClock displays a charge of ~80% but battery lifetime / remaining charging time isn't displayed.

The bios backup battery seems to work correctly, date and time are correctly displayed in bios.

I am using the original IBM battery.


Any ideas, comments? What went wrong?

[j-dawg]

When this happened to my X24, I had to replace the battery, but I didn't mess with the hardware beforehand. With mine, there was a period of a few months over which the battery performance took a few abrupt dips and then the unit died. A new battery off eBay solved the problem for me. I wasn't entirely expecting a new battery to solve the problem since it died so abruptly, but it did.

Since you made hardware changes to your machine when this happened, your situation may be different, but I'd try a new battery. See if you can find one to borrow before you buy a new one.

[nomo]

thanks alot!

i guess the battery can be described as being near the end of its lifecycle. I didn't expect it to happen that abruptly. I did "mess around" with the hardware but nothing that would come to my mind as being anywhere near risky (replacing the hdd and such).

Ironically, a new battery is already ordered and should arrive this week. I put the old one in the fridge, let's see what happens.

My only hope is that only the old battery is faulty and not my X24. i just got it, but already love it.

[Paul88]

As an X24 user and have a trouble with battery before.
Hope new battery will fix your problem.

Good luck,

[nomo]

The new battery arrived and works as supposed. It seems the circuit of the old battery died, while the cells still had capacity of 1-1.5 hours. bummer.