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IBM 600 Series Laptops and Flaky Batteries?

Posted by Cliff on from the going-thru-Li-Ion-packs-like-water dept.

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?

5 of 446 comments (clear)

  1. My Thinkpad 560 by msgmonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've got a 560 and used it mainly connected to the mains. My battery died very fast as it seems the TP would keep the battery topped up even if you was using mains power. Upgrading to the latest BIOS fixed the problem but I still had to shell out for a new battery (as mentioned, not cheap).

  2. SR11k battery life by gweihir · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have a vaio SR11k. The battery is slowly degrading (down to 120 minutes from initial 150 minutes a year ago), but the interesting thing is that at the beginning the charge reported by the BIOS (APM) was almost linear, now I get the last 60 (!) minutes of operation in the last 4% of detected battery charge.

    My solution to this is ext3 (I mostly run Linux on it) and just running it until it goes down by itself. If the IBMs have similar behaviour, but force a power-off at, say, 10% detected charge, an equivalent battery would be good for only about 30 minutes instead of the 2 hours I get.

    Side note: I am not using the laptop that often, maybe 2 times per week on battery.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted and ignored otherwise.
  3. Re:What is average life? by macdaddy357 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I am a repair technician, and have personally serviced hundreds of thinkpad 390s, and 600s. My co-workers and I say IBM stands for I Bought a Mistake. The batteries are indeed garbage. That is why on units with a three year warranty, the battery only has a one year warranty. If they would only last that long, it would be an improvement.

    The worst are the Ni-mh (nickel metal hydride) batteries. When I was servicing a pool of 390s for a life insurance company, IBM first denied there was a problem, then released a software utility to cycle the batteries which would allegedly restore their capacity, then IBM replaced them all with Lithium Ion batteries. When the insurance company eventually bought new laptops, they still bought "stinkpads."

    Businesses still buy IBM hardware because of name recognition. They figure that the biggest must be the best. These decisions are made by suits whose VCRs flash 12:00, and who never ask any technical people for advice. As long as this is true, IBM will keep selling garbage. They know that suckers will buy their name.

    --
    How ya like dat?
  4. Re:Betteries don't last forever. by mfarver · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I worked support for Dell's portable computers a year ago. Dell warrenties batteries for 1 year and expects then to fail after 1.5-2 years. The life span is mostly based on usage, more cycles, shorter life. However, batteries that are never used will still fail in about the same time frame. (The engineers were always denying this, but my guess would be it is because the system gives the battery a short charge everytime it is turned on) If you use the system often, four batteries in as many years is pretty average (most power users get less than a year). IBM and dell use batteries from the same manufacturer(s) so I'd expect simialr results. (heck, if we're being honest, almost every laptop sold is built by one company on one assembly line).

    My $.02 USD

    Mark

  5. Large enterprise installation by FuryG3 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I went to dinner with a CEO at a johnson and johnson subsidiary company the other night, and we were taling about experiances with different laptops, ranging from dell to apple. I said that IBM makes quality laptops but for a premium (my personal experiance). He quickly said "oh god they don't, we purchased several hundred laptops from them and everyone has had a battery problem, and we're losing a rediculous ammount of money buying everyone new ones every few weeks".

    I didn't ask about the model numbers, but when I saw this article I just thought throw that out there.