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IBM 600 Series Laptops and Flaky Batteries?
netdemonboberb asks:
"I don't know where else we should turn, because no site will write articles on [this subject] and IBM is denying that their IBM 600 series laptops have flaky batteries. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute distributed these laptops to freshman students in 1999 and almost everyone I knew in my class had this issue. Ralph Levien's page has suggested it appears to be an issue with the 'Smart Monitoring' circuitry.
I'm writing this article to get the issue out in the open so IBM can no longer deny it. These batteries are expensive, and I have had to replace mine 4 times already. Can anyone who reads/maintains slashdot help or provide any advice on getting resolution for this?" I must say that from personal experience, I've wondered if this might be the case as well. I have an IBM Thinkpad 600e laptop and I've already gone through 2 batteries. The laptop is currently inactive as it must be tied to the wall if it is to be used. Has anyone else experienced shorter-than-average battery life using these laptops? Were you able to do anything to improve the battery life?
These laptops are 3-4 years old. Laptop batteries last 1-2 years under moderate use, less if you recharge more often (Heavily used ones last under 6 months sometimes).
Where's the problem?
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
You have to condition the battery. Fully charge it, then use their utility to discharge it.
I would suggest contacting the Better Business Bureau to get these complaints addressed.
No seriously, IBM laptops haven't been as well regarded I think as Dell or Sony or even Toshiba. If a school is forcing a particular brand on its students, it should at least do a little research on quality rather than settle for the lowest bidder.
I've also had this problem. I use an IBM Thinkpad 600 at work and the battery dies on me when I undock. It says it's just fine, but within minutes warns me that the battery is about to die, very similar to the report in the linked article.
It starts out fine with a new battery and gets progressively worse. I asked our helpdesk about it, and the helpdesk representative said that this sytem occasionally needs to be unplugged and the battery allows to run down, indicating this is a memory effect of some kind. His advice was once every 2 weeks, and he indicated that IBM suggested this to him. I'm a consultant but we have contracts both with external clients, and with clients who are sister companies. It is not uncommon therefore for me to not need to undock my laptop for months at a time.
I've gone through 2 batteries in a year. The batteries last about a month, after which I start dragging my power adapter around with me while the paperwork gets filled out for a new battery. This one died about 6 months ago, but my laptop is (and has been) scheduled for replacement since then so I haven't bothered to get it replaced.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
Not an IBM, but apple's ibooks have the same problem. The dropoff point on the battery goes up and up and up (for fun I held onto my last one until you unplugged it, the battery discharged to 97% before going dead). I was wondering if it was a charging problem or if there is a common li-ion battery manufacturer who is at fault...maybe a common manufacterer makes the same battery charging components for IBM and Apple, though?
You can have a look here for some reports of the dead batteries (though most of the people there are blaming it on jaguar, I run linux on my ibook and have had the problem twice).
So stick it to apple while you're at it, eh? Of course if you're smart, buy the extended warranty. It will cost apple a lot more money to give you an extra battery every 3 months for 3 years than it will to fix/replace your ibook probably. Might as well teach them a lesson...
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
I have deployed and supported both Thinkpad 600 and 600X configurations, and Dell Latitude 366 and 300 MHZ models, and they all seem to have batteries that last just over a year.
Literally, to the point that we will get a sudden surge.. six or so a week, of stone dead batteries. A little digging on my part led me to believe that the six came in together as well, and they usually died a little bit over a year after purchase. (Note, this is a "little bit" after the warranty.. batteries are warranted for one year from date of purchase of the LAPTOP not the battery, at least here.)
Now, the IBM's have a charging circuit that keeps the battery "conditioned". Would this kill a battery in a year? Probably. WHat I know a lot of people do is ONLY put the battery in if they are going to use it off AC. Charge it for an hour before you need it, and run it down. When you get back to your desk, pop the battery out, and dock without the battery.. that seems to be the "rage" as rumored by our customers who have traveled to Japan, where they claim people do this.
YMMV, but as a tech who supports about 1K of these things, yeah.. the batteries die in a year, and yeah, the IBM party line is "this is normal".
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
I entered RPI a year later and got a T20 notebook and have had the same problems. While I haven't had to replace the battery, it only works long enough to boot Windows and go into sleep mode. Most of my friends also have this problem, and we all took care in properly charging the batteries. Seems like it's an Thinkpad problem, not just a 600 problem.
I've had 2 TP 600's (a PII-266 TP 600, and a PII-366 600e), both used. The 600 came with a battery that it seemed wouldn't die, and the 600e came with a dead battery.
:
It seems this is not an unusual situation, if you spend a little time looking around on eBay. Here's how to avoid trouble
1. Do a search for 'dead Thinkpad 600 battery', and note the FRU#'s.
2. Do not buy a replacement battery that matches one of those numbers. It's just a matter of time. If it's not dead already, it will be.
I don't know the FRU# on it (process of elimination following step 1 above will tell you which ones are ok), but it's my recollection that they fixed this problem. You just have to find the right battery.
Need a simple, easy to use data tier generator? http://www.gryphinsoftware.com/
This happened to my 600-Something too.
More information can be found here, it even explains how to get some more life out of your battery.
I have a Toshiba 4280ZDVD that I got in March of 2000 that has been used heavily since, at least 5 days a week), both for travel and in the docking station. Still has the original battery. Still goes for about an hour and half without PCMCIA use.
I've also got an old Panasonic laptop from 1996, which can run about 40 minutes on the original battery with a WiFi card installed. Not great, but hardly as bad as what they're describing with these Thinkpads, either.
My experience, based on the use of several laptops and speaking with others, is that every laptop will have a severe fall-off in battery life after around the year-and-a-half point -- but that doesn't seem to be what they're describing here. If it doesn't hold a charge after less than three years, it sure does sound like something funny's going on at IBM.
But let's give IBM credit here. I mean, it's not like IBM has ever had this type of trouble with their other consumer products before. I'm sure if they did, they'd fess up to it right away.
*cough*75GXP*cough*
OK, I just checked some stats on my batteries for fun...
Between the two of them I have a design capacity of 38.88 + 34.56 Wh. In reality I have a functional full-charge capacity of 20.06 + 23.06 Wh respectively. I unplugged the power and I'm down to 19.54Wh + 22.06Wh in one minute.
The discharge cycle counts are 144/329 respectively.
Generally, it's about 2 hours of real use I get out of them, The calculated time is 4:14, but it's going to turn out a lot less than that.
I don't know if this means I have a normal set of batteries or not, but I'm not as impressed with them as I used to be. I had hoped that Li-Ion was better than the Ni-Cd of yester year.
At this rate, I can hardly code my way across the country. Originally I was able to run >7 hours of use.
My wife's ibook is an original blue one. She still gets 3+ hours out of the battery. Enough for her to work on a plane from west to east coast without a charge.
Both of these have a battery life under RH 7.2 of about 1.5 hours, which is about the same as they ever had. Both have been used constantly for years. The Fujitsu, in fact, has a flaky power plug, so it is frequently switching between AC and Battery power, yet it has no battery life issues.
My point being, it is not all IBMs, all laptops, or even normal. If you're having an issue, report it to the company. If the company won't help, report it to the BBB.
-WS
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
My company has 35 Thinkpad 600s. These laptops have been great, and they have not had any unusual battery problems.
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
I've had a 380XD for a few years now (bought it brand new), and every 6 to 12 months I have had to get a new battery, either IBM or OEM replacements. The laptop only gets used maybe once or twice a week, as it is a network testing machine, and I make sure to let the battery run down to about 10% before I charge it back up. There is definately somthing wrong with IBMs battery management system in their laptops. Additionally, a friend of mine has a newer ThinkPad (not sure which series, but it was purchased in fall of 2000) that suffers the same battery issues.
-===- "Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserver neither" -===-
IBM actually distributes a "maintenance and care" flyer with their new Thinkpad's. It clearly states that the battery is a consumable item with performance tapering over the useful life. As far as I am concerned, the 600 series batteries lasted much longer than the Compaq's or Dell's, which go bad after about a year.
Since the battery warranty is only good for one year, it helps to simply call it in for repair at this point. Or get the Best Buy 4-year service contract. I've had them replace a stack of 600 series batteries over this kind of time frame.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Have a look at Panasonic's LiION webpage. This is consistent with the other battery blurbs I have seen. LiION batteries have a cycle count of ">500", which means that someone who charges their laptop every day will have a dead battery fairly soon. This is the cost of not having to lug around NiMH batteries, which weigh about the double for the same capacity. NiMH would have lasted about twice as long, but then nobody would have bought the laptop because it was too heavy.
Dell's Inspiron batteries are only rated for 400 cycles (ctrl-f for "battery life") of charge/discharge.
That's not long at all, especially if you consider the transit commuter, using his laptop on the ride to and from the office - that's only 200 working days.
I just wish I knew where the "1.5/3 hours" figure comes from though. Even brand new, I was lucky to get 45 minutes, and that's minimal hard drive activity... although I suppose Linux could just be sucking more power (more threads in the background or something) than Windows does.
I have had my 600e for 3yrs now an am on my 4th battery. I find they last the longest when you don't leave the tp pluged in for extended periods of time. If I'm not traveling alot and my tp just sits on my desk pluged in after about 4-6 months the batt is shot. If I actually unplug it and take my tp home at night from a client that bat lasts about a year before I start running into issues. Anyway I always have 2 on hand, one being a good one and the other somewhere in between. Anyway I just ordered my 5th one today as well as a new cdrom drive as it seems to have just given out.
We bought over 120 IBM ThinkPad 600 and 600Es in 1998-2000. The ThinkPads are awesome machines except for the battery life. IBM has admitted to us (at least as much as IBM ever admits to anything) that there are some issues with the batteries and possibly even the charge controllers. They have been fairly good about swapping out batteries even those out of warrenty.
If you or RPI is spending a few million dollars a year with IBM and aren't getting your batteries replaced, someone needs to lean on IBM.
Of course, if you're not spending big bucks with IBM, suck it up. The battery is nearly four years old. How long did you expect it to last? Replacing the battery once a year doesn't sound that bad, does it?
(After-market batteries are available for the 600-series. Rebuilds are also out there. You may want to check those out. They don't last any longer than the IBM batteries (since it seems to be the charge controller) but cost about half to 75% as much.)
InitZero
Yes, I've got a 600e and it's eaten two batteries (and the third is starting on the downward curve.) It's a couple of years old, so I guess it's not that bad.
;-))
However, a couple things to consider. There are at least three ways to get replacements from IBM. One is full retail - it's very expensive and not a good idea. Another is to call about the warranty, even if it's out of warranty. They offered to give me a battery for half price if I shipped them the old one. Lastly, if it's under warranty they'll send you a new one and a prepaid box to send the old one back.
Another thing to consider when discussing rechargeable batteries is that you need to look and see what technology the battery in question is. Lots of people are spouting off stuff about full discharge, topping off, etc, but that's all a load if they don't know what kind of batteries you've got. NiMh != Nicads != Lithium Ion. Proper care of each is fairly different - Li Ion being the strangest. Do some googling and you can find articles about proper care for each type of battery.
My 600E has/had Li Ion batteries and I was surprised to read one day that it damages them to discharge them below 40% capacity. Couple that with a fixed number of recharge cycles (where going from 95% to 100% counts as a cycle) and you see that any time you run on batteries, you should go down to 40% and then recharge.
Also note that the latest BIOS for the 600E won't start a recharge cycle unless the battery is below 95%, which is a good thing. IBM also recommends that you upgrade the configuration utility when you call about the battery warranty - they claim somehow the newer version is better for the batteries as well.
Given that I run Linux I have my doubts that it matters to me, but I did update it in case it tweaked some setting in the hardware.
All in all I've been looking at a battery every 18 months as part of the cost of ownership. If that bothered me a whole lot, I'd take the batteries out unless I really needed them and store them however is appropriate for the technology.
(Enough rambling for now
I've been using nicads intensely since they were invented and never had any "memory" effect appear. I did sometimes get overcharge induced voltage depression until I got a decent charger, but never anything like "memory".
Or used to until a couple of weeks ago, anyway this is all still valid...
If your laptop is under warranty just send it in. The repair facility is not owned by IBM, and the policies are pretty lax. If you send in your laptop complaining of battery problems, 9 times out of 10 the tech will replace the battery without even testing it. If they should happen to test it and think you are wrong they are required to contact you before sending it back unrepaired. When they call, just bitch enough and you'll get your battery (but bitch in a polite tone of voice).
The turn around time for the each unit is 24 or 48 hours, meaning your laptop can't be at the depot for any longer than the designated time (most are 48, but they try to do it in 24 anyway). This means that if you send in your laptop on Monday, you'll probably have it back by Thursday (and possibly Wednesday), and with a brand new battery. Note, this only works for units under warranty. If you purchased the extended warranty it will be honored. If your warranty has expired in the last 30 days that's ok too, you're still covered.
Apple does 3 things right on the power front.
1. CPU's draw less power. While Apple uses the same CPUs in it's laptops as it's desktops (And the same core logic), it's CPU's are very energy efficient. This does allow them to have a nearly unnoticable performance gap, unlike the desktop world (A 1.8GHz Mobile P4 is not faster than a 1GHz standard G4).
2. Big Honking batteries. Apple uses 47, 55 and 61 watt-hour batteries, most PC laptops top out at 38-40 watt-hours. Between this and the much lower draw CPU's is why 'Books see 4-6 hour battery life and PC's see 2.5 hours on a good day.
3. High Quality Batteries. Apple buys Sony batteries. This is one reason that you seem to get less laptop for more cash. It's also a reason why apple batteries last 3-5 years and PC batteries don't. Cheap ass batteries (Like those in low-end Thinkpads) don't last.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
Ah ha! And even more useful than my above post, is in fact the link to said program. Here ya go... ftp://ftp.pc.ibm.com/pub/pccbbs/mobiles/isbr01ww.e xe
and the ever useless readme ...
ftp://ftp.pc.ibm.com/pub/pccbbs/mobiles/isbr01ww.t xt
enjoy.
STANDARDS: The principles we use to reject other people's code.
I always use the battery until its just about dead, then recharge fully. I only take out the battery if it is over 95% remaining. Otherwise I drain it, recharge till its full then take out the battery (if I have AC access). It has only less than 30 cycles in all that time!
I also have another battery new in box which I have never used since I bought it. I wonder if it is still good?
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-5.htm
The basic gist of it is this:
Lithium-ion has low maintenance, low self-discharge rate, and battery packs have built in circuitry to protect the pack from complete discharge and damage. I point you to the quote "Some capacity deterioration is noticeable after one year, whether the battery is in use or not."
I have recently replaced the battery in my Dell laptop after it's 1.5th birthday. Pricy, but all the research I did indicated that that's the lifetime of the pack, wether used or not.
Seriously, the (simple) replacement of a $100 part once a year for the life of a $1000-3000 device is part of the TCO.
Actually, the BBB exists for the "Business" and not
the consumer. I swear their role is specifically to
"make the annoying consumer shut the fuck up and
take some sort of pitiance and go away" instead of
actual problem resolving. They tend to pretend they
are some sort of government sanctioned agency,
which they ARE NOT, instead of the private company
they are. Your absolute best course of action is:
#1 check all company's out at www.resellerrating.com
before making a purchase. And a note: just because
they have a high rating doesn't mean you shouldn't
read the comments posted by prior customers, and
you shouldn't pay special attention to how good
they are at refunds/replacements. A lot of these
fly-by-night companys have high ratings, but
extremely low ratings for warrantee service. As
long as what you get from them works, great. But
you can be SOL if you get sent something broken.
#2 If you do get screwed, use google to find out
what state the company does business in, and
contact that states ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE for
consumer affairs. Almost all states have an online
complaint filing system. The good thing about
going through the AG is that your complaint will
stay on file forever. The next person that files
a complaint will add to the pile, and they'll
notice. I've had 4 experiences recently with the
AG's consumer affairs offices in NJ, NY, CA, and
TX, and they ALL got me my refund/replacements
within a month. They all have an online fraud
complaint filing system. Hope this helps.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.