Battery won't charge past 99%

[Mrjoe1008]

Hi,

The 6 cell battery on my x200 won't charge past 99%--- the computer is only 2 days old!

Any ideas?

Many thanks,
Joe

[erik]

with the default power settings they won't start charging again until about 95%.

[lightweight]

It's not a bad idea to lower that threshold. At 80% charge, battery minded x60s with 8cell can get around 6 hours, and presumably your x200 is similar. By lowering the upper limit for charging, you save cycles on your battery while staying mobile. More importantly, you can go wireless and then plug in to your desk (allowing full brightness, full disk io, etc) and vice versa whenever you want and not care about abusing your battery.

[Mrjoe1008]

Thanks for the info! If I understand correctly, lowering the charge threshold, I'll reduce the strain on battery?

How can I lower this threshold?

Many thanks,
Joe

[732]

By lowering the upper limit for charging, you save cycles on your battery while staying mobile.

It does not save cycles because you don't fully charge - the cycle counter doesn't work this way.

The cycle count is an estimate. So if you drain from 100-30% and recharge that's a cycle count. If you charge it to 90% and let it self drain to 80% and recharge that's a 0.1cycle. It'll take 10 of those to get 1 cycle.

The default is 96% but I would recommend using 90%.


Mrjoe1008, you can set this in ThinkVantage power manager > battery information > battery maintenance > custom

[lightweight]

By lowering the upper limit for charging, you save cycles on your battery while staying mobile.

It does not save cycles because you don't fully charge - the cycle counter doesn't work this way.

My poor choice of words: I do not mean the cycle count feature in battery monitoring but rather limiting the number of charges of the battery cells, including partial charges, for those who frequently prefer or find themselves on battery for relatively short periods throughout the day.