Miscellaneous > Technical Support
Thinkpad - bad battery?
davidnix71:
$81 plus shipping here:
http://www.ibm-laptop-batteries.com/ibm-thinkpad-t60-series.htm#
The reviews here suggest problems with the "ultrabay" Sony battery.
http://www.breakitdownblog.com/lenovo-thinkpad-t60-battery-life-35-or-9-hours/
worker201:
--- Quote from: davidnix71 on 24 September 2008, 02:10 ---The reviews here suggest problems with the "ultrabay" Sony battery.
http://www.breakitdownblog.com/lenovo-thinkpad-t60-battery-life-35-or-9-hours/
--- End quote ---
The ultrabay battery is a bonus battery that fits in the combo-drive slot. You can trade optical support for extra battery life. I don't have one of those. My battery is one of those 9-cell fuckers. Weighs a ton. Think I'll get a 6-cell replacement.
Weird thing is that I don't think I've ever used the battery on this computer. Both it and my MacBookPro are laptops that spend 99% of their time plugged in on a desktop. But the Mac, which is considerably older, still gets like an hour of battery time.
BTW, that article is wrong about the Intel 945GM. It drives the screen pretty well at all sorts of resolutions. I chose the integrated graphics because it was the only one guaranteed to support Linux out of the box with open source drivers. Then again, I've never had any real concern for high-end 3D performance. Unless you're a gamer, the 945 is great. And personally, fuck gamers.
davidnix71:
I have a kill-a-watt meter and the last G4 PB Apple made. Since I run off a solar battery bank, I wondered how much power it took to run the laptop and whether the charger that used 110v and a sine wave inverter was less efficient than a direct 12v car adapter. Both use the same amount of power.
Both the Macally charger and the original Apple wall wart float charge the battery. The energy consumption is almost zero when the battery is full. No dis on IBM, but I think Apple's charger is smarter than most in not overcharging the battery. The flaming Dells with Sony lithium batteries (which were outsourced to China/not made in Japan) failed because heat from charging caused internal cell failure.
There is also some problem with lithium batteries in general. I have a pocket camera that uses a Nokia cell phone battery and both of the batteries went sour without much use. One was bought new. Neither would hold a charge for long and both self-discharged excessively. It makes the camera almost useless.
I would feel safer with NiMH batteries in a laptop even if it cut the runtime.
worker201:
[totally off-topic]On the ship, we used laptops (Dells) because the electrical power was so unreliable. The theory was that if the power spikes, you don't lose all your data, and can continue to work until the engineers can switch generators. The practice was that even though the laptop stayed on, the serial and USB peripherals would all go off, which caused Windows to shit itself. Wanna watch Windows crash hard? Connect like 9 serial devices via some USB serial hubs, get them all flowing, and then disconnect them in mid-stream.[/totally off-topic]
A lot of things about the Mac are smarter than their competitors. Then again, a Mac charger costs $85, and a Lenovo charger costs $59. You really do get what you pay for.
Lead Head:
Have you looked at in the manual for what the flashing light might mean, possibly something else but low battery?
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