T40 battery life

[thelittleprincess]

I got my T40 back in August 2003...the battery use to hold about 3 hour of life - but now I can only get under 1 hour. The battery is a 6 cell Li-Ion model 08K8193.

How did this happen? Some say not to keep your battery in the laptop when using the AC adapter....but the IT guys at my school say they use IBM laptops and keep their battery and AC adaters on 24/7 and after 3 years, the battery still holds about 3-4 hours of life.

I've read here and on Anandtech.com that I should check the cycle of my battery and discharge to low % then recharge but others say to do frequent recharges. I'm so confused. How do I find out the # of cycles? I try to do the left click but can only find info through the "Power Meter" which gives the "Detailed Information on Battery" as follows:

Battery Status
Battery Name: IBM-08K8193
Unique ID" 707SANYOIBM-08K8193
Chemistry: LION
Power State: On Line, Charging
Manufacturer: SANYO

It has a "Refresh" button but I have no clue what that does.

Right clicking on the icon gives me a "What's this" pop-up which goes on to say "Displays the charging status of your battery. Click the icon to see detailed information."

I'm worried as to why my battery can only gives me about 50 minutes worth of life. I am getting the 9 cell Li-Ion battery in a few weeks and would like to know how to extend the life of that battery - I don't want to run into the same problem as with the current 6 cell battery I have.

Thanks in advance!!

 

[qaa541]

Go to control panel and open "Think Pad Configuration"
In that program there is a button for battery. When you click on that battery it will open a window that has all the junk you posted, as well as number of cycles, manufacture date, total power capacity when new, total power capacity now etc. ... (at least it does on my T42)

If it has too many (250+) cycles your battery is ending it's life cycle.
If your battery is more than 1.5-2 years old( and it sounds like it if you have the original T40), I would think your battery is simply dying of old age.

Anyway you're lucky in that the entire T4x series uses the same battery so you can buy any of the batteries for the newer T42/T43's and it will work on your T40.

Newegg has the 9-cell extended battery for like $99 btw.

 

[fbrdphreak]

qaa541 has nailed it. I personally don't like IBM batteries, they're the main weak point of the Thinkpads.

A side note on the batteries: IBM has recently started using higher capacity 6-cell and 9-cell batteries for the T43's; these are compatible with the entire T4x series it appears. I would look for these specifically. IIRC, the 9-cell went from 6600mAH to 7200mAHr and the 6-cell from 4400 to like 4600. 9-cell all the way :thumbsup:

 

[thelittleprincess]

ok, so i figured out that when the IT guy at school reformatted my laptop (he cleaned everything out and started fresh) that the Battery Maximiser was no longer there. I downloaded it and now can actually figure out the battery cycle - 495!!! Yikes. No wonder my battery is a piece of crap now.

But now that I have the Maximiser back, I can actually see the "threshold" that other people were talking about. It looks like it's the alarm - for me to set the warning of when my battery hits a certain percentage.

Ok - so people talk about setting the threshold low - like at 3%. What does this do? When I first read this, I thought that setting it at 3% would mean that I could have my battery and AC adapter plugged into the computer. But isn't this one of the reasons why my battery is draining/cycling so much?

When I get the 9 cell battery, what should I do to mazimize it's life? Should I remove the battery and just use the AC adapter while at school? Or is there a way for me to keep both the battery and the AC adapter plugged it - and bascially use the energy from the AC adapter unless unplugged - then can the laptop automatically default to using the battery? Or am I just being foolish? See, the IT guy at school told me that his IBM laptop is 3-4 years old and he keeps both the battery and AC adter plugged in almost 24/7. **sigh** I just want my battery to last.

Thanks for reading....hopefully someone has some advice for me.