X60 Tablet with 199 cycles suddenly has dead battery

[proaudioguy]

Error messages says A battery error has occurred, The battery cannot be charged, replace the battery. Now I have heard of planned obsolescence but this is ridiculous. What good is a tablet without a battery? The battery health was good last week. The computer sat unused for a week which happens when I'm off work. Now it is dead for no reason?

Battery stats are:
Status: No activity
Remaining percentage: 0 %
Remaining capacity: 0.00 Wh
Full charge capacity: 51.73 Wh
Current: 0.00 A
Voltage: 12.42 V
Wattage: -
Temp: 32 C
Cycle count 199
Manu name: Sanyo
Manu date: 2007-03-28
First used date: 2007-05
SerialNumber:418
Bar-Code number: 1ZDA473W08BM
FRU: 42T4507
Design capacity:66.24 Wh
Design voltage 14.40 V

I have never abused this machine and I have never used a different power supply. This is not my fault?

What do I do now? $150. for a new battery for a $2300. machine does not sit well with me. I feel like I should be able to use the machine more than 200 times, but in reality some of those cycles are on the same day where it was discharged partly then put back on the charger. I don't mind the capacity slowly getting lower and lower but a complete failure is unacceptable. Lenovo, what are you going to do about this? Now I wonder if I made the right decision buying this W700ds.

[treker]

You might try this link: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-Th ... d-p/147118

And search battery here. Lots of comments just like yours. Sudden death.

[proaudioguy]

I just found this http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... ml#English
Are you friggin kidding me?! The program is over? I have treated this machine like gold and because I have not used it for 8 hours a day 7 days a week I'm left out int he cold? Really?!

[Harryc]

Lenovo does not frequent or read this forum, so you are basically preaching to the choir here. Most of us have had a battery fail ... at least once.

[Kyocera]

have you tried this link

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... ATT-LENOVO

I bought an x60 from ebay on or about Oct 15, (last month) the battery had strange behavoir, searching around the lenovo site one evening I came to the above link, almost kept going but for the heck just decided to run that little check. Four days later I had a brand new 8 cell high capacity battery from Lenovo and the "sorry for the inconvienence" letter.

I was a happy moo fo.

[bill bolton]

Cycle count 199
Manu name: Sanyo
Manu date: 2007-03-28
First used date: 2007-05

That is a good service life for a LiON battery.

I feel like I should be able to use the machine more than 200 times

A cycle is made up of usage that is equivalent to a full charge/discharge cycle on the battery. It can be made up for multiple partial charge/discharge events, so your 200 cycles probably represents several hundred (or more) periods of some time on battery power

Lenovo, what are you going to do about this?

You get a 12month warranty on the battery, after that you are on your own.

Batteries are consumable items -they don't last forever, and you've had a good run from yours.

Cheers,

Bill B.

[proaudioguy]

I don't consider it a good run because I only turn the computer on a few days per month. Those charge and discharge cycles are at times 2-3 times in a single day. The rest of the time it stays plugged in while in use, which isn't much. I only use the battery the first day of each job.

The battery health and capacity was fine a week ago, which was the last time I had it booted. I did some maintenance (changed out the HD for a faster one) and like I said it was fine. Today I turned it on to swap drives again to an SSD and when it booted the battery was dead. This is not wear and tear. Wear and tear is what I have on my X32 and A31 batteries. They gradually hold less and less charge. If it gradually dropped down to 20Wh, then 10Wh (which would be almost useless for a tablet) I would not be upset. It went from a 2-3 hour run time to "ERROR". That is not a dead battery, that is a hardware malfunction. I'd be willing to bet if I cracked it open the batteries will probably charge up and hold the charge just fine on an external charger. Lenovo admits to the defect, there is a TIP about it, but they only allowed the defective batteries to be replaced for a short time and shut down the program in Sept (little over a month ago). IOW if I used the machine more I probably would have had the failure in time for the recall. The link suggested above is for a similar recall, but does not include the Tablet. The recall on Tablet batteries was pulled already. As a registered user I should have been notified at least by email of the recall.

FYI, if I discharge the battery only partially, not nearly a full discharge, it shows another cycle as soon as it's back to full charge. It could be run for 20 or 30 minutes. Remember this was a 5 hour battery (they claimed 8 hours new).

[bananaman]

The rest of the time it stays plugged in while in use, which isn't much.

As Battery University says "If used on main power, the battery inside a laptop will only last for 12-18 months."

It went from a 2-3 hour run time to "ERROR". That is not a dead battery, that is a hardware malfunction..

This is not a AA battery, it's a smart battery, and you don't get to choose what happens at the end of its life. For instance if one of the cells declines first, putting more load on the rest, that's a safety risk, and the battery is going to shut down.

I'm an abuser of batteries. Everything which Battery University says could prolong life, I do the opposite. Most of the time they decline gradually, then just go over a cliff. Batteries last 12-18 months in my hands, and that seems to be the best the current technology can do.

I'm not saying there's not room for improvement, because there is. We all wish batteries lasted the lifetime of the laptop, but they don't, yet.

[Kyocera]

If my battery failed after the warranty or if it failed after the expiration of a recall, I would say to myself "in future I will keep an eye on the Lenovo support site and make sure I keep everything up to date and look for any technical issues that may go on since I paid $XXX.XXX dollars for this machine" oh wait that's why I frequent this forum and constantly check the Lenovo support page and even occasionally the Lenovo TP forum, so I already do that.

[dr_st]

Sudden death happens, and most experienced it. I had it happen to me in my old Compaq Evo. Battery was lasting 2+ hours, haven't used PC for a few months, plug it back in - boom, battery at 0% and won't charge.

Hasn't happened to me with any of my IBM/Lenovo's yet. I have and have had batteries with 200+ cycles, 2.5+ years old, and still 85% capacity. Mostly Panasonics. That's a great run for a LiIon. I also have and have had batteries with 100 cycles (but 4 years) and 40% capacity. That's still a good run.

Having a battery just die out is not a good run, though. Especially since experience shows it tends to happen randomly, with next to no relation to battery age and number of cycles. Especially since there is a huge difference in laptop usability between a weak battery and no battery.

But, yes, batteries just die. Nothing to do about it.

[John H]

There seem to be a lot of X6x battery failures lately. The 4-cell Chinese clone I bought a month ago is down to 42% capacity. I've never had a TP battery, OEM or aftermarket, deteriorate that quickly. Good thing I only paid $30 for it.

I suspect that the quality control has slipped, probably for reasons we don't know, like speeding up production or cost cutting.

I suspect that we'll just have to weather the storm until they get straightened out, if they ever do. I guess I'll just buy another one.

[John H]

I must not be using the right battery monitor because mine doesn't show the 'cycles'.

What battery monitors are other people using?

[Kyocera]

You might have to unplug the DC adapter and then right click on the green battery icon or just open Lenovo power mgmt from the start menu and click on battery tab and scroll down to see "cycle" count.

[paul*robertson]

As a general question, if you use your laptop always plugged in with the power cord, should you remove the battery.

[dr_st]

No, you shouldn't. In fact, if you do, your Thinkpad may be locked to low CPU speed.

[spaznrq]

I don't have an answer to the dead battery problem, but just to share my experience, I have gone through 3 OEM batteries for my 4+ year old X60. I tested each of them under the battery recall program, but unfortunately each of them are all only one single digit away from being eligible for a free replacement. Coincidentally, they have all died shortly after the end of the 1 year warranty period. BTW, I don't abuse my battery.

Sick and tired of paying full price for the batteries, I am now running off a $40 Chinese imitation, which is running just like new so far for the last 2 months. While I am aware of the dangers associated with knock-off batteries, I simply cannot afford to buy a new $150 battery every year as a college student with massive amounts of loans. If my laptop ever starts heating up and crackling, I'm just gonna throw it outside on the concrete to let it explode.

If the OEM batteries had a 2 year battery warranty, perhaps I wouldn't be as hesitant in spending my $150.

[mpcook]

Sick and tired of paying full price for the batteries, I am now running off a $40 Chinese imitation, which is running just like new so far for the last 2 months.

Where did you get this one, and does it appear to communicate well with the laptop? I have gone through 2 AGPtek batteries which come with 1 year warranty, but after swapping twice, I am getting a full refund as they admit the electronics in the battery may just not be up to snuff for my X60 Tablet. This was bought on Amazon, 8 cell for about $50 - too good to be true I guess. So I am looking for another option. Right now I am looking at the Lenovo outlet, at least maybe I will get a year from it.

[paul*robertson]

Is this the same problem with the X61 battery. I'm on the verge of buying an X61 but this is putting me off.

My 600x still gets 40 minutes on a five year old battery.

[John H]

Chinese copy batteries seem to have erratic lifetimes. I bought a 4-cell and an 8-cell about 6 weeks ago, the 8-cell is still OK, but the 4-cell is down to 42%. So I bought another 4-cell on eBay for $30 (inc. shipping) and I'll see how it works out.

I figure I can afford to try out 4-5 Chinese copy batteries for each OEM battery. I don't know which would be worse for overheating and exploding.

[proaudioguy]

I picked up a battery from RRR Enterprises. I have dealt with them before so when I saw the auction I just went for it. It makes me realize how good I've treated my machine when I get a used battery in good condition and immediately notice how trashed it looks compared to my original. This upsets me but there is nothing I can do about it and it's not RRR's fault. The batter has under 90 cycles and is 6 months newer than mine. It works well but after a battery reset it is NOT at full capacity. They would have no way of knowing this without performing a reset. Still it's 62Wh so not too shabby. If anyone else needs a battery they have more. I will say it was NOT cleaned, but that will take up 120 seconds of my life so no worries there. Still even after cleaning it, the scuff marks and wear ont eh rubber feat disappoints me after having taken such good care of mine.

http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... 0255751648

no affiliation whatsoever.