Laptop battery dead?

[homerdog]

I recently bought a new battery for my Thinkpad T43. It was nice, getting 2.5-3 hours of life out of it - then I screwed up.

I let the laptop sit unplugged for about a week (didn't know that was such a bad thing to do...); when I tried to use it again of course the battery was dead so I plugged it in and began laptoping. A message popped up stating the battery had been *completely* drained and it would take 10 hours to fully recharge it . It's been plugged in for five days and still won't hold the least bit of a charge, dies instantly when power cord is pulled out.

What to do? I'd hate to buy another new battery, this one is less than two months old.

Spoiler for more details:

Spoiler

There is a "recondition battery" option but when I try to run it it tells me it must be plugged into the AC adapter. WTF the laptop won't even run if it's not plugged in!

Now I'm starting to think the charging circuitry has gone bad but I don't have the old battery to test that theory on.

Some snake oil tricks online look pretty shady. One involved wrapping the battery in paper towels and putting it in the freezer for a few days

 

[Zaphod]

Had you changed the typical battery shutdown alarm settings in your OS to squeeze out the very last amount of runtime, or did you let it shut off at a reasonable 5-10 percent charge?

The first issue with deep discharges is that you quickly reduce the maximum charge the battery can hold that way, and the second is that the self discharge of Lithium-ion batteries greatly increases the risk of tripping the protection circuit if it's completely depleted and then stored. Now the voltage is too low, so the battery has determined that it won't accept new charge for safety reasons. (Specialized chargers might possibly revive it though at a repair centre).

If you didn't deliberately *completely* discharge it before it died, then it sounds like a warranty/RMA issue to me. If you did, then the lesson is don't.

Spoiler

Bios options to "recondition battery" typically just performs a controlled full charge and deep discharge to recalibrate the percentage and runtime counters after some natural wear.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

One thing you might try is put in the freezer for a day then take it out and let it come to room temp and see if it will charge.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I'd make fun of Snipe's suggestion, if he hadn't suggested I do the same to a HDD a while back and it brought it back to life...

Piece-o-advice, put it in a ziploc bag before you put it in the freezer...keeps condensation from accumulating on it.

 

[homerdog]

Had you changed the typical battery shutdown alarm settings in your OS to squeeze out the very last amount of runtime, or did you let it shut off at a reasonable 5-10 percent charge?

The first issue with deep discharges is that you quickly reduce the maximum charge the battery can hold that way, and the second is that the self discharge of Lithium-ion batteries greatly increases the risk of tripping the protection circuit if it's completely depleted and then stored. Now the voltage is too low, so the battery has determined that it won't accept new charge for safety reasons. (Specialized chargers might possibly revive it though at a repair centre).

If you didn't deliberately *completely* discharge it before it died, then it sounds like a warranty/RMA issue to me. If you did, then the lesson is don't.

The discharge was not deliberate. In fact I don't think it shut down on a low battery warning; it had ~20% charge when I stored it off the charger for about a week.

One thing you might try is put in the freezer for a day then take it out and let it come to room temp and see if it will charge.

That's one of the suggestions I found in my googleing. If worst comes to worst I'll give it a shot.

I'd make fun of Snipe's suggestion, if he hadn't suggested I do the same to a HDD a while back and it brought it back to life...

Piece-o-advice, put it in a ziploc bag before you put it in the freezer...keeps condensation from accumulating on it.

The post I read recommended wrapping in paper towels, but I suppose I could double bag it. :smile:

Thing is, I don't see that I did anything wrong (at least not out of the ordinary) and the battery is for all intents and purposes useless. It's literally dead weight at the moment.

 

[Zaphod]

The discharge was not deliberate. In fact I don't think it shut down on a low battery warning; it had ~20% charge when I stored it off the charger for about a week.

Then self discharge shouldn't have been an issue (unless you kept it in the window on a locked black car and it was 25C and sunny during the whole week). I'd guess it's either a dud battery (it happens, but one thing to check is that all the contacts are clean) or - somewhat less likely - the laptop.

 

[homerdog]

Got it to a point where I could try the 'recondition battery' option. Let that run for a few minutes. When I returned the critical battery light was blinking again it's back to square one.

Then self discharge shouldn't have been an issue (unless you kept it in the window on a locked black car and it was 25C and sunny during the whole week). I'd guess it's either a dud battery (it happens, but one thing to check is that all the contacts are clean) or - somewhat less likely - the laptop.

Contacts are clean AFAICT. Looks like a call to Lenovo is in order.

 

[Frank]

Most of the time, the problem isn't with the battery, but with Windows.

Windows keeps track of the voltage and time to determine the charge. Unfortunately, that voltage is pretty flat for most of the charge for Li-Ion. Which means, that when those values have shifted only a small bit after a while, Windows thinks your battery is gone while it's still fully charged, and will instantly shut your laptop down.

How to fix this:

1. Plug it in, start it up and disable all things related to power management in the BIOS and Windows.

2. Unplug it and run the laptop on the battery until the charge is fully depleted. Start a game demo or such and let it run until it dies.

3. Plug it in, and let it charge fully without powering it up.

4. Start it up and and repeat steps 2 and 3.

5. Start it up and enable any power management features you like.

6. You're done.

This also works with most other mobile devices that have an OS that monitors battery charge.

 

[Zaphod]

Most of the time, the problem isn't with the battery, but with Windows.

Windows keeps track of the voltage and time to determine the charge.

Windows has no idea about these things other than what the battery tells it. The problem arises when what the battery thinks about it self and reality aren't congruent due to natural wear or environmental factors. The process you're describing is typically the same as what "recalibrate" options in a notebook BIOS would do, but some will also do such resets of the gauges automatically based on some condition such as when the battery voltage drops below a certain level.