A31p boots fine with no battery - but not with

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murray · #1 Post by **murray** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 3:43 pm

anyone seen this behaviour. If the battery is dead would this result in a refusal to boot?

thanks to all for any relevant advice,

Murray Skuce, Vancouver, BC

#2 Post by **Harryc** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 4:31 pm

Mod edit I deleted your other post in the A31P project thread. We do not allow cross (double) posting on the forum.

ajkula66 · #3 Post by **ajkula66** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:26 pm

You have to find another battery and test with it...

Your battery might have a defect (short or a hard ground?)that would prevent the machine from booting. If the laptop works fine with the borrowed battery, we'll know that this is the case.

Should the laptop exibit the same behaviour with the battery #2, you are likely looking at the charging circuit on the motherboard that has been damaged. This may or may not be repairable..if it's just a fuse that has shorted out, you're in luck. If not...A31p should be a desktop replacement anyway.

Good luck

Paul Pennington · #4 Post by **Paul Pennington** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 7:04 pm

This has happened to me. I once bought a dead 701C (Butterfly) at a swapmeet for $20. When I removed the battery, it worked fine. Batteries do not usually fail in this manner, but it does happen on rare occasions. You can safely operate your A31P on AC power without a battery installed.

murray · #5 Post by **murray** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:50 am

Thanks to both of you , Paul and AJ. If I can find a functioning battery for it for cheap I will try that test/solution. If not, as you both suggest, it will be moored to an AC plug.

BTW, is there in fact a fuse for the battery circuitry on the MB? I've had the unit apart before and would consider popping it open again if there was indeed a fuse in there that might be gone.

thanks again, Murray

sjthinkpader · #6 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 7:48 pm

Yes, there are two fuses for batteries, main and Ultrabay.

Paul Pennington · #7 Post by **Paul Pennington** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 2:46 am

An open fuse doesn't fit your symptoms: the fuse would break the connection to the battery, so a shorted battery would not keep the computer from booting.

proaudioguy · #8 Post by **proaudioguy** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 9:05 am

All you guys suggesting to run the computer without the battery must be forgetting it only clocks half speed when the battery is removed. I wish they would run full speed without a battery. I used the batteries on mine more as a UPS than anything else.

Paul Pennington · #9 Post by **Paul Pennington** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:20 am

proaudioguy wrote:All you guys suggesting to run the computer without the battery must be forgetting it only clocks half speed when the battery is removed. I wish they would run full speed without a battery. I used the batteries on mine more as a UPS than anything else.

I've never heard that. Can you give us the source of that information?

Normally, we'd believe you, but you ARE from Florida, and the election is tomorrow.

murray · #10 Post by **murray** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:35 am

Paul, I agree about the broken fuse not fitting what is happening here. I guess I just don't see how a broken fuse or a dead battery would stop the machine from booting when it is AC powered. Does anyone have a more reasoned analysis?

thanks again to everyone who has posted on this, Murray

Paul Pennington · #11 Post by **Paul Pennington** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 11:46 am

Well, actually George and I are saying it is PROBABLY the battery. I just felt it was not a fuse, given the symptoms.

I guess you don't have access to another battery to try. If it runs OK without the battery on AC, it's your call if you want to buy another battery or not.

#12 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:06 pm

proaudioguy wrote:it only clocks half speed when the battery is removed.

AFAIK the CPU speed and it's speed behavior is either set in your BIOS or via Power Mgmt, and has nothing to do with a battery inserted or not.

virge · #13 Post by **virge** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 2:35 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:
proaudioguy wrote:it only clocks half speed when the battery is removed.
AFAIK the CPU speed and it's speed behavior is either set in your BIOS or via Power Mgmt, and has nothing to do with a battery inserted or not.

Strange but true-- The A31 won't run at full speed in XP without a working battery installed. If anyone finds a way to change that in XP, let me know.

#14 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 2:55 pm

Ajkula66 to the rescue! Hello, where are you?

ajkula66 · #15 Post by **ajkula66** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 4:01 pm

Yep, it will NOT run at full speed in XP with no battery installed. It will do so in certain Linux distros, however...Xubuntu, for instance.

Paul Pennington · #16 Post by **Paul Pennington** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 5:15 pm

I had never heard of this "feature" of A31's only running at low speed when the battery is removed. Searching this forum I found this thread:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ttery+slow

First the Georgia/Florida game Saturday and now this

The problem seems to affect some A31's and not others.

I wonder if this is related to the two types of system boards found in A31's. The faster ones, 1.8 GHz and above, have a different board from the slower ones. The faster ones have type numbers with a N, P, Q, or R in the fifth character. (xxx-*xx where * is the letter N, P, Q, or R.) These faster boards seem to be the ones that require a battery to run at full speed, based on the limited sample in the thread.

Perhaps the faster boards need a boost of current from the battery occasionally, so IBM designed them this way.

murray, what is the type number of your A31P?

ajkula66 · #17 Post by **ajkula66** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 5:26 pm

There's many more system board types used on A31/p not just two...these machines shipped with three different GPUs to begin with...

Behaviour will also depend on BIOS version I'm tempted to say...and if you read on, you'll see that the issue is NOT exclusively related just to A3x series...

murray · #18 Post by **murray** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 11:24 am

Paul, the model etc is as follows

2654-MU
s/N 78 RFC66
10/02

Interesting. When I have it running on AC and pop the battery in it dies. Then battery light comes on blinking, then steady.

True, I do not have a second battery handy. Guess I could buy one on ebay or such. Anyone have suggestions for a reliable, inexpensive place to find one?

Once again, thanks to all who have dug into this. Fixed or not, I sure don't feel lonely about it.

murray · #19 Post by **murray** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 11:59 am

well this is embarassing:

Following on above - ie, having put the battery in it when it was up and running on AC and having it go down a moment or two later - I booted it just for the hell of it ten minutes late and what do you know, it is up and running with the battery.

What I should have mentioned earlier was that, prior to encountering this battery issue, the laptop sat for six months or so without use, battery in.

Looks rather like it just took that moment's jolt of sticking the battery in when the box was up and running that has made the difference.

I do feel a little sheepish. Hope, however, I've at the least stimulated some interesting discussion.

Many thanks to all once again.

SMA · #20 Post by **SMA** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 2:15 pm

So you are not using the original 4.5A AC Adapter - is that what you are trying to tell us?

murray · #21 Post by **murray** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:32 am

yes, I am running on the ac adapter - with the battery installed. I am using it as essentiall a net radio - it just sits and runs on AC beside the stereo pulling in my favorite jazz stations on the net. In this mode, is it best to remove the battery?

virge · #22 Post by **virge** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 1:54 pm

I think what SMA was getting at is whether or not you are using the correct adapter. If you are using an adapter rated at below 4.5 amps then it may not have sufficient power to both run the laptop and charge the battery at the same time. This is especially true where the battery is severely depleted.

ajkula66 · #23 Post by **ajkula66** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 3:51 pm

You should not run the machine without the battery...

virge · #24 Post by **virge** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 4:48 am

ajkula66 wrote:You should not run the machine without the battery...

I'm curious as to the reason for this... I have a few older machines with dead batteries and I assume that is the same as running without a battery. What do you think will happen if I continue to run these machines with a dead battery?

proaudioguy · #25 Post by **proaudioguy** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 9:40 am

I'm glad there is so much speculation as to the accuracy of my post. Both of my machines were originally 1.6GHz and I've replace both system boards and I assure you they run at roughly half speed max when the battery is out. These are not the only A31/p I have experience with and all of those do the same. Having said all that my BIOS is the one with the "GET" in it. Perhaps the OTHER BIOS is the one that doesn't have this issue, but unfortunately it's not compatible.

I've had 3 32 meg boards, 1 16Meg board and a 64Meg board, all with this "feature".

proaudioguy · #26 Post by **proaudioguy** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 9:53 am

Paul Pennington wrote:I had never heard of this "feature" of A31's only running at low speed when the battery is removed. Searching this forum I found this thread:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ttery+slow

It appears to run at 1.2 when the battery is present and functional but very low on charge. I ran one of mine without a battery for about a year and it ran at 898Mhz according to MobMeter, roughly half the 1.6GHz speed.

Paul Pennington · #27 Post by **Paul Pennington** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:06 pm

I've never encountered the slow CPU without battery problem on my two A31's, but then I've never run them without the battery. Could someone post a safe place to download the MobMeter utility? The first few Google found look vewwy scawwy.

ajkula66 · #28 Post by **ajkula66** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:06 pm

@virge:

If the battery holds a solid orange light, it's still (fairly) safe to use. Using ones with a blinking light, or running the machine with battery removed will eventually damage the charging circuit.

And, of course, most ThinkPads will not run at full speed in Windows with battery removed.

proaudioguy · #29 Post by **proaudioguy** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 1:23 pm

virge wrote:
ajkula66 wrote:You should not run the machine without the battery...
I'm curious as to the reason for this... I have a few older machines with dead batteries and I assume that is the same as running without a battery. What do you think will happen if I continue to run these machines with a dead battery?

Mobmeter doesn't install. It just runs where it's at. It creates a config file the first time you run it. If you trash that file, your customized options go away. I keep it in a folder in my docs folder and have a short cut to it in my startup folder. I can probably email it to you. I downloaded it from one of those scary sites. Since the guy that wrote it is Chinese (I think), I figured it was safer than it looked.

A31p boots fine with no battery - but not with

A31p boots fine with no battery - but not with

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