I bought a used Thinkpad X41 type 1866 last year, and the battery it came with
was already somewhat dead. A full charge was worth about 45 minutes. That didn't
cut it for my note-taking purposes, so I usually used it plugged in, degrading
the battery even further. About a week ago I finally broke down and got a new
battery. Specifically, I ordered and received this
one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003LAMVZI
As per the included instructions, I let the battery charge overnight before
turning it on, and then I let it run down off A/C until it hit low battery. I
actually turned it on twice again after it ran down, because I wasn't sure
whether it had actually run low on power or simply gone to sleep on a timer.
Anyway, the instructions and other research I did suggested that I should repeat
the same procedure a few times, so that night I plugged it in again to let it
recharge. This time as soon as I put the battery in, the battery indicator
started flashing orange rapidly. I didn't think much of it at the time. I let it
sit all night, and in the morning I unplugged it and turned it on to use it.
Turned out it had not charged the battery at all; I had barely typed in my login
before the power abruptly cut. I plugged it into A/C and booted it, and the
battery meter read 3%. All the while the battery indicator was still flashing
orange, probably for "low battery."
I can go into the battery information panel and clearly see the battery status
state "No activity" where it should read "Charging." It's very baffling, because
it does report the correct battery levels, it simply does not charge it. The
laptop will run fine on A/C with no battery, and it will still charge my old
battery, so I'm pretty sure that I've just got my hands on a defective battery.
However, I wanted to ask first if this is a known problem that can be fixed. Has
anyone encountered something like this before?
_______________________________________________
Thinkpad mailing list
[email protected]
http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad
