Can old battery be reconditioned?

[John H]

I have a couple of old T40 batteries that the OS reports as being only 30% rechargeable. Apparently the battery has an internal memory and the OS (or perhaps the CMOS) will simply not try charging beyond that point.

Is there a way to reset the battery memory and retry a higher charge amount?

[djpharoah]

You can get some life back by charging and fully draining the battery 2-3 times. It sometimes works and sometimes it doesnt.

[chan_man]

If you download the latest power management from Lenovo/IBM, there is a new feature to recondition your battery, you can give it a try. I just did it on my T42P, not much change, guess you have to do it a couple of times.

The other option is to just get a new battery, here is a offer in the marketplace. http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=61983

[John H]

On another thread one of the guys pointed out that Lithium based batteries have a protection circuit because of lithiums propensity to explode! I remember that before lithium was used for computer batteries it was thought too volatile to be used in consumer products and was only used for remote applications like buoys floating out at sea.

So I guess that a guy has to be careful fooling around with these things. That includes disposal, which can be done at stores like Home Depot and Radio Shack where they sell batteries. My neighborhood Tru Value hardware store collects old batteries.