T61 - Battery blinking all the time, not charging.

[irateuser]

I have had nothing but trouble with Leneovo T61  battrey . The original battery lasted 1 year. The second battery lasted again only for 1 year. So the third battery I purchased was not  a Lenovo battery. The charging  has been very erratic ever since. As soon the machene is powered , I get zillion message reminding me how I am not using a Lenovo battery ( Lenovo and Non Lenovo battery are made inChina anyway). Then the charging does not work for weeks, only to resume again. It stays at a particular level for days, then may charge to 100%. I think Lenovo is forcing me to buy a LenovoT61 battery ( that will last only 1 yr)  I am not giving in to the the strong arm tactics.  I have tried complaining, Power Manager maintenance etc. The charging is just erratic with no discernible pattern.They have built in software to disrupt charging of Non Lenovo batteries.   I am managing with just AC powered T61  and  I will make sure no one in my family EVER buys a Lenovo again, and ensure I discourage all my friends and relatives from buying.  

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

if you find these messages annoying, you can just uninstall the Lenovo Power Manager.

So how many charge cycles are you clocking up on the T61 batteries before they fail.

[ffrut]

manee -

Thank you for the bizzare tip!  It worked for my t61p just as described.

I had left it for a week with the power plugged in and found that it would only operate on power cord - whenever power was pulled the t61p just died as if the battery was dead.  When booted, the power info showed 75% battery.  Suspiciously it acted exactly the same with my old battery, appearing to have no charge at all.

I pulled battery and power cord, hit power button 10 times at 1 sec intervals and then held it down for 30 secs.  Pop the battery back in and it works!

Thank you again. 

[leatherlou]

I hate to say this but from the first day i bought this laptop the battery has given me all kinds of trouble & has never held a charge. Shoot right it says it has 20 percent battery life and it isn't 2 months old ! God help if if gets unpluged because i go totally black screen & fast. I never got a CD for recovery nor a manual for it. Shoot try there online site for a manual it isn't even there. Trust me i tried because i want to know how to recalibrate this battery, i can't find it out until i found this thread. The sound on this one comes & goes to at will, figure that out. I bought a laptop because i do a great deal of traveling & with a dead battery kind of defeats my reason in buying a new laptop. The following are the specs it was to have then i will tell you what it has;

The Lenovo 14" T61 ThinkPad Laptop PC has the bare essentials you need to compute on the go. Connect wirelessly or with an Ethernet port to surf the web, email and more. Windows XP Professional lets you complete any task. Intel Core 2 Duo processor

2.0GHz, 2MB L2 Cache

2GB DDR2 SDRAM system memory (expandable to 4GB)

Gives you the options for surfing, video conferencing, documents, basic photo editing and simple computer tasks 

80GB SATA hard drive

Store 53,000 photos, 22,860 songs or 42 hours of HD video and more

DVD-RW drive

Watch movies, and read and write CDs and DVDs in multiple formats

10/100 Ethernet, Integrated Wireless LAN

Connect to a broadband modem with wired Ethernet or wirelessly connect to a Wi-Fi signal or hotspot with the Integrated LAN connection built into your PC

14.0" display

ATI Mobility Radeon Graphics 

Additional Features:

3 x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x audio-out jack, 1 x microphone jack, 1 x RJ-45 Ethernet port, 1 x VGA port, 1 x port replicator/connector

Rechargeable lithium-ion battery

Genuine Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Backup and Restore options built into Windows allows you to create safety copies of your most important personal files, so you're always prepared for the worst

1-year limited warranty

Restore discs are not included (unless specified by supplier). We recommend you use the installed software to create your own restore and backup DVD the first week you use the computer.

Power cord

Rechargeable lithium-ion battery

Quick Start Guide

Laptop

Recovery CD

To start with it should of come with a DVD-RW drive This only has a CD-RW, That made me mad because i was wanting to put my medical records on DVD's & now i can't ! Recovery CD, What Recovery CD there was none! No Manual as well, if i had one i could find out how to recalibrate this battery & find out why i am having trouble with it. 

[ajkula66 Guru]

Welcome to the forum, leatherlou!

Hate to burst your bubble, but the youngest T61 is over three years old right now...

A DVDRW for these machines can be bought used for $20 or so nowadays...

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

14 inch LCD with ATI GPU? with 2 mb L2 Cache? DDR2 ram are you talking about the T60 here?