Genuine Lenovo Batteries vs. Generic Replacement?

[pgoelz]

I was sorta thinking that maybe the charge monitor didn't realize it was a new battery and mistook it for the old 4cell which was only getting up to about 60-70%. I'll check further, later.

I could be wrong but I have always assumed that the charge and monitoring circuitry is entirely in the battery. The only thing in the laptop is circuitry to query and report what the battery says. The purpose of a "battery guage reset" is simply to force the battery to fully charge and then fully discharge, bypassing any premature low battery cutoff.

If that is not the case, then things get more complicated and your suspicion that the laptop applied the wrong battery information to your new battery makes some sense.

Paul

[bill bolton]

I was sorta thinking that maybe the charge monitor didn't realize it was a new battery

I'd be sorta thinking that your battery doesn't have the unique identifier necessary to be recognisable as a unique instance of a battery by the ThinkPad.

Cheers,

Bill B.

[John H]

The plot thickens. It appears that the X60s sometimes confuses the two 4cell batteries. The linux battery monitor displays a different serial number for each battery, but sometimes it appears not to re-acquire the serial from the battery, because the display shows the wrong serial, and also the wrong capacity info.

I've got to setup a similar test on the XP partition system.

I've been assuming that the serial number is the unique identifier for any battery, and would be used by software/firmware to distinguish between battery units.

[proaudioguy]

I have owned a lot of Thinkpads. They have mostly had batteries that ran down to the point where they either have less than 50% capacity and are still in use or less than 10 minutes run time which have been replaced. The exception is the X60T. I have done a lot of research and they clearly have a defective battery in many cases. Even if it's caused by 1 cell suddenly crappng out, it's unacceptable. A battery with 70% of original capacity that runs for 2-3 hours one day and has an error the next is NOT normal. In my case the machine had been off for almost 2 weeks as I only use it for work. Fact is they recalled the batteries in several machines, including the Tablet, but the recall for the tablet ended in Sept 09. Of course they didn't advertise the recall by sending emails to registered owners.

[dday]

Fully charged is not good. "Seldom cycling" is in fact good. Lithium cells degrade during each cycle and do not require periodic charge/discharge to remain "conditioned" like some Ni based cells.

Paul

I thought I'd just chime in (and my first post on this forum:). I type this on my 3.5 year old 14" SXGA+ T60 in which I use the original 9cell battery I got it with. It has (I just checked) 717 cycles and still has around 81% of its original capacity, meaning it will keep my (t)rusty old T60 running for almost 5 hours straight... So not everyone has a bad experience with Lenovo battery's

BTW the battery has Panasonic cells fwiw...

cheers,
Lennert

[jwthinkpad]

I thought I'd just chime in (and my first post on this forum:). I type this on my 3.5 year old 14" SXGA+ T60 in which I use the original 9cell battery I got it with. It has (I just checked) 717 cycles and still has around 81% of its original capacity, meaning it will keep my (t)rusty old T60 running for almost 5 hours straight... So not everyone has a bad experience with Lenovo battery's

BTW the battery has Panasonic cells fwiw...

cheers,
Lennert

Hi Lennert/dday,
I think 717 cycles is probably the highest I have seen on any forums. Can you tell us about your usage habits? That may help others prolong battery life.
Thanks

[dday]

Hi Lennert/dday,
I think 717 cycles is probably the highest I have seen on any forums. Can you tell us about your usage habits? That may help others prolong battery life.
Thanks

I've used my T60 daily for about 3yrs untill I got my replacement T61. The T61 has a much faster CPU but is widescreen 1440x900, which I don't like. I still use my T60 for email and the occadsional demo. The T60 is absolutely the best TP I've had (allthough the T42 is a very close second). This one has had a very rough live, seeing more airplanes, trains and customers the I can remember, but still serves me well.

I usually run on battery power and charge when needed. This means that I charge when the battery-gauge is somewhere around 5-10%.

I have disabled all battery savings apart from screen shutdown. CPU is always at its max as is the harddisk. I didn't like how vmware behaved when the host-os decided it was time to shutdown the drive... (or lower the cpu-speed)

With the original config (a core solo T1300 and 2gB ram) this gave me around 6-7hrs of usage, with the current config (a core duo T2300 and 4gB of ram) and with a much older battery I still manage between 4.5-5hrs.

A picture says a 1000 words, I believe the verb is...:


cheers,
Lennert

[dr_st]

Not surprising, it's a Panasonic... If one can show me a Sanyo battery with similar numbers after said number of cycles/years, then I'll be surprised.

[jwthinkpad]

Not surprising, it's a Panasonic... If one can show me a Sanyo battery with similar numbers after said number of cycles/years, then I'll be surprised.

I didn't know there was a sharp difference in life of batteries by different makers. So in general, Panasonic is better than Sanyo?

Are there any other makers of thinkpad batteries and how do they compare?

I did a quick search on this forum, and this is the closest thread that talks about battery makers, http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=51609

[dr_st]

My findings:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=76365

[proaudioguy]

I am certainly not trashing all Lenovo Batteries since I have not used all of them. There was clearly a batch of misfits. Most have been recalled but the recall was limited. Some models are still under recall, so I advise anyone with a working battery to check. Of course if you have one of those you probably aren't reading this. Fact is my battery worked perfectly until it didn't. These batteries should not simply stop working. It's not like it was under heavy use then failed. It was simply sitting in a machine that was turned off for 2 weeks.

[Hauskaz]

Does anyone have a generic X60 Tablet battery that is compatible with the UltraBase X6? I've had a generic for a few months now and it's worked just fine, but there are two 'bulges' on the bottom which cause the tablet to wobble on desks and also makes it impossible to use with the UltraBase. See the following:

http://i.imgur.com/7ATAn.jpg

Dead Lenovo 8 cell battery on the left (thanks Lenovo!), generic 8 cell on the right.

The desk wobble issue alone bothers me enough that I wouldn't mind buying another battery if there are generics that don't have these bulges on the bottom. There are two spots where it looks like rubber feet would go to fix this balance issue, but it never came with any.

[jwthinkpad]

The desk wobble issue alone bothers me enough that I wouldn't mind buying another battery if there are generics that don't have these bulges on the bottom.

My roommate bought a generic 8cell tablet battery from ebay, did not have those bulges. But his generic died after a month of use.

I would check the lenovo outlet for a tablet 8cell and get that. around $60 shipped.

[mpcook]

I got one from Amazon that fit fine, but after trying several replacements, all had problems, and I ended up going with Lenovo outlet 8 cell, which has been great.

Mike

[proaudioguy]

Those buldges look like they would get in the way of using the tablet sleeve. Not good.

[nblanton]

Here are the stats on my battery which is a Sanyo and has been used daily since I bought my X61t in August of 2007. I leave it plugged in all the time at home, and carry it with me to school everyday. It still lasts around 2 hours when I used it on batteries. It has decreased since I bought it, but I've got 2 and a half years out of the thing.

Here is a pic of my power manager.

http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz21 ... anager.jpg

[dr_st]

Edit:

Based on the current capacity it has to be the 8-cell. The design capacity of this one is 66.24Wh, as far as I know, which means it currently holds ~71% of its original charge. Not bad given the age, the cycles, and especially considering what I've grown to expect from Sanyos.

[nblanton]

After looking at the thread again, I believe that the folks who are upset about the battery life are experiencing catastrophic failure. I'm happy with my batteries life, and I definitely abuse my laptop. I may be in the lucky minority, or the folks that have had the batteries fail are in the unlucky minority. I doubt that many people who are complaining have batteries that have lasted the way that mine has. I visited this thread to determine what battery I should choose as a replacement, however there doesn't seem to be a very good consensus to help someone make that decision. I'm probably going to shell out the bucks and pick up another Lenovo branded battery. No one has actually recommended an aftermarket solution with more than a single anecdote to attest to the battery quality. And if anecdotes meant anything I would say that Sanyo batteries are excellent, which I believe after reading the thread not to be the case.

Edit: Yes, its the 8-cell battery and according to Power Manager my battery currently has 71% of its original capacity. And if I could get the same performance out of a new one, I would say ~$150 would be well worth it.

[bananaman]

These batteries should not simply stop working.

proaudioguy, can you expand on why you think this?

I can immediately think of several reasons why a battery SHOULD simply stop working, mostly in situations with risk of loss of function, loss of data, damage to the laptop, or safety.

[Eudoxus]

Obviously, the quality of after market batteries vary. It seems to me that these 8-cell batteries should be OK as they come from a trusted seller and are claimed to contain Panasonic cells. (http://global.ebay.com/neuer_8_Zellen_L ... 02028/item) I have not tried them myself but it certainly may be worth of it.

[dr_st]

I can immediately think of several reasons why a battery SHOULD simply stop working, mostly in situations with risk of loss of function, loss of data, damage to the laptop, or safety.

I can understand the safety argument, but loss of function/data? What kind of losses of function or data can actually be caused by a bad battery, and would be _prevented_ by the battery suddenly quitting on you completely?

I think what proaudioguy meant is that if a battery suddenly stops working at all (i.e. totally dead), then it means it is faulty, since this kind of behavior is not due to normal battery wear.

[bananaman]

Hi dr_st,

Suddenly loosing power while on battery can cause loss of function or data, that's why it's better for the battery to "simply stop working" while on AC power, of course!

When the bad battery is detected, it warns you immediately, and you shouldn't rely on it.

That's why a battery may reach the end of their life gradually, or suddenly - you don't get to choose.

[dr_st]

Suddenly loosing power while on battery can cause loss of function or data, that's why it's better for the battery to "simply stop working" while on AC power, of course!

I see what you mean, although most of the time while on AC power, batteries are idle anyway, so you wouldn't know that it's faulty until you actually try to use it. I can't imagine there is any hardware or software that monitors idle batteries in real-time and can provide you with such information...

[bananaman]

Between them, the power management software in the laptop and electronics in the battery monitor its condition.

Battery threads in all the forums tend to live on, partly because there are issues with some batteries, but also because of the expectation that batteries will behave like AA's and gradually peter out - but that's now how laptop batteries work!

There's so much energy stored in these things which are plugged in to your valuable laptop that they have to be monitored, and sometimes they suddenly shut down when there is risk of loss of function, loss of data, damage, or safety.

[proaudioguy]

proaudioguy, can you expand on why you think this?

I can immediately think of several reasons why a battery SHOULD simply stop working, mostly in situations with risk of loss of function, loss of data, damage to the laptop, or safety.

Well in my case in particular the laptop was shut down with no issues, it has never had any hard use, it never even runs at full clock, so there is not large draw on the power. When it was turned on 3 weeks later the batter was in failure. So it failed while stored in it's case. There is NO reason for that. Meanwhile I have 7 more thinkpads, 6 of which are much older and have had roughly twice as many batteries, and have NEVER had this type of failure with any of them. They simply lose capacity over time. Now if the machine was always in heavy draw, and it was perhaps a hot day, or the battery was not well ventilated, and it suddenly failed during use, I would feel it may be a fluke. I still consider that a design flaw, because with all the technology involved here, there should be a thermo sensor to prevent overheating. Like I said, no such issue. There is an 8 page thread about this on the lenovo forum. These batteries were recalled for a few months. It's clear lenovo was aware of the issue, but they pulled the recall. The non-tablet X6x battery is still under recall btw.

[proaudioguy]

Battery threads in all the forums tend to live on, partly because there are issues with some batteries, but also because of the expectation that batteries will behave like AA's and gradually peter out - but that's now how laptop batteries work!

Well on a side note I would contend that this is what makes them a poor design/ defective. You can't name it after something I've been using for close to 40 years and tell me how something is supposed to work differently. That's techie talk. Being a techie in my profession, I know my clients don't want to hear a word about why I can't do something.

That is not relevant to this discussion at least in my case. The battery failed while the unit was OFF. This is a flaw in design or a defective battery much like the ATI chip BGA issue. Those failed because they put a thick rigid chip on a thin flexible PC board using tiny rigid solder balls with no lead (due to ROHS). Worst design EVER. I'm certain had those been a pin array they wouldn't have ever failed in such mass quantities. If they said, buy this A31 or T43p and in a year or 2 you may or may not have a graphics failure, most people wouldn't have purchased them. Same with this battery issue. If they told me chances are my battery will only last 2 years even if I take it out and put it on a shelf for that time, I'd tell them no thanks, I'll buy the Motion Computing tablet instead. They make a fine product.

[bill bolton]

You can't name it after something I've been using for close to 40 years and tell me how something is supposed to work differently.

There have been many different battery technologies around for far longer than the 1970s, and they all behave differently.

Cheers,

Bill B.

[proaudioguy]

There have been many different battery technologies around for far longer than the 1970s, and they all behave differently.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Yes but only these lithium-ion just simply FAIL all at once for no apparent reason. I am not convinced the cells are bad either. If one of the cells suddenly failed, fine, expect it, and make them replaceable. The stupid thing is I only need about an hour of solid run-time so if the battery had just gradually decreased capacity it could have lasted 5 years or more. It never lasted the 8 hours it was advertised to, but the 3 hours it was running when it failed was plenty.

I am waiting to see if lenovo will do the right thing, but eventually I will open it up and test the cells. If I find a bad cell and manage to do this without gak-ing up the case, I may just replace the cells so I have a second battery. I must state if you intend to replace your own cells, you must use all new matched cells or you WILL have a bad day. If I don't find a bad cell, I will consider this a failure on Lenovo's part and I may not ever buy another machine from them. If I could have confirmed for a fact this was their fault, I would have canceled my W700 order and waited for the i7 multi touch mac to be released. I am a huge thinkpad fan, but I'm not going to put up with being screwed over. The fact is as far as I can tell there is nothing else out there in the PC world that competes with the quality except the Macbook Pro, which has a one piece aluminum case, how cool is that? If they had a decent Keyboard, and a trackpoint instead of that stupid touchpad, I would have jumped ship when I saw how bad the T61 was. I figured that was the end of the Thinkpad brand. Fact is I got the W700 because of the trackpad, and the positive reviews of the screen HERE. I figured the wacom tablet would come in handy, and it already has changed my computing life. The trackpad is turned off. I've also started getting used to having a number pad again. BUT.....THIS THING IS HUGE AND HEAVY!!! I don't plan to EVER use it on battery except as a UPS. The battery currently shows 3 cycles and they were there when I got it. I've had it since November. Unfortunately the design capacity is 84WH and the full charge capacity is 80.5WH The battery is over a year old. Not impressed! But like I said I'll never use the battery. If it will last 10 minutes in 4-5 years from now, I'll feel like I have had a good run even though it will have had very few cycles by then.

[flrthinkpad]

I have a T61 purchased in March 2008 with standard battery pack. 42T4566. The original battery pack started to lose a lot of capacity within 6 months and I got a replacement under warranty in Nov 2008. (I had the standard one year warranty and was surprised that they replaced a consumable like a battery without any questions.) Then the next battery (also with Sony cells) started losing a lot of capacity by the past summer and now it is officially at 18 Wh after the last two resets but in reality it is less. It is only at 131 cycles. It only runs maybe 20 minutes on battery. So then recently I found out about the Lenovo application and downloaded.

I think my strategy is going to be to keep the new battery on the shelf at 80-90% charge and only use it when I need the laptop to be mobile. I use the laptop plugged in 90-95% of the time so will continue to use the old battery for this purpose. (Under warranty Lenovo requested the old pack to be sent back but not this time).

Does this sound like a good plan? I am hoping that the new pack doesn't have Sony cells.......

p.s. I thought the service in this replacment was excellent. I had the new pack within 48 hours of running the downloaded testing software. But it would be nice if they notified people.

[lstratos]

How often does Lenovo Outlet get batteries ? I'm desperating needing a x61s.. but would probably have to buy a generic one...

I have tried Denaq batteries on my x41s and they were decent. Anyone else have an opinion about it ?