T410 Battery Threshold-something is weird

It might be because I'm missing some piece as I reinstalled Windows 7, but I'm not seeing a battery threshold setting change on this laptop....

Can someone post screenshots on what it's supposed to look like?

I'm hoping I'm just missing a driver, and it's not like the SL410

 

The easiest way to see if you're missing a driver is to use Lenovo's System Update - it'll automatically find the latest drivers for you.

There should be a battery threshold option, though.

 

You need the power manager driver and power manager software

 

I actually restored to the factory installation with the recovery media onto a spare laptop HDD I had sitting around.

Still not configuration settings. It lists "Battery Maintenance" and mentions setting a maximum lifespan mode, but there's not setting for that...

THat's a Charge Mode
[cb] Automatic
[cb] Notify me when charge modem changes







Battery gauge reset

There's a blank space inbetween the battery gauge reset section and the charge mode. is that where it's supposed to be? Do I have to run a gauge reset first?


In general with the W510, T410 or T510, copy over the driver folder cache that Lenovo uses, in particular if you plan to clean install with a vanilla version of Windows.. The driver downloads are INCOMPLETE on their website! There are obvious pieces missing. Also don't forget your recovery media, too! Good thing I made those, or I would have been hosed after the reinstall!

 

Hmm, there is no option below to set custom charge thresholds then? That isn't good. I hope Lenovo didn't take away this feature in Thinkpads. I find this feature by far the best reasons for me to stick with Thinkpads. If it was there, it would be grayed out right below automatic and you would be able to click a check box to ungray it and set the thresholds. The only other thing I can think of is look to see if you have power manager in basic or advanced mode (top right of the window). Basic mode may not have custom thresholds but advanced may. Please post screenshots of the power manager.

 

It'd be nice if someone else could corroborate my experience, but even after the restore to factory, that feature wasn't there...

I also upgraded the BIOS before I got the system running, so perhaps someone should try with a version before 1.09??

 

did you try to download Thinkvantage tools from lenovo website?

 

Well, wouldn't the factory restore installation have that?

 

Please post screenshots of power manager for you. Also, like I said in my post, do you have power manager running in basic mode or advancement mode? Here are some screen captures of Power Manager running on my T400

 

I have my t410 with the factory load still (x64 Win7 Pro) and I can confirm there are no threshold settings. I have a check box for automatic charge mode, I can toggle this but there are no fields to specify thresholds

 

That is unfortunate

 

theoretically, it should. but since you didn't have it, doesn't hurt to try install it by yourself.

 

Yup I got the same thing.

Maybe it's a bug, or a yet completely configured component? Hrm.. Hoping they didn't just remove this!

 

Does anybody have any success setting thresholds yet?

I'm still in the same situation - T410 integrated with no way to set thresholds. I'm kind of worried about the battery lifespan already.

It also seems that I can get only around 5 hours of battery life. Is this roughly the same for others or am I missing something here?

 

I can confirm - no threshold.
But with my 9cell I get around 6hrs, but I tweaked my settings a little.

 

Isn't this caused by the fact that T410 uses the SL series batteries?

 

Very, very strange. My T410 came today.

My power manager allows me to set thresholds for my 27++ battery (9 cell on the bottom) but not my main 9 cell battery...



Any thoughts as to why this is?

 

Any update on this? :/

 

No, the T410 uses different batteries.

Battery thresholds require support from a certain chip inside the battery, which apparently the new Tx10 series batteries lack. Interesting that the slice battery does have it though...

 

Because several of you have this behavior I would guess it is not just something overlooked. Still ...

You both have latest Power Management driver (1.60) and Power Manager (3.12) installed? And is Power Manager set to be in "Advanced mode"?

I also like the thresholds for battery charging, and can only hope they were not left behind by Lenovo.

 

Maybe someone should contact Tech Support? I'm wondering since the slice battery has the functionality if this is something that a mass amount of main batteries were not built to spec or what is going on. It seems odd that a feature that has been present for so long would be removed and only there be a whisper about it. Me personally, if I bought a new T410 I'd be more pissed than I would about the keyboard flexing. I've had my Thinkpad for about 1.5 years and my 6 cell and 9 cell still hold just slightly above design capacity (90 cycles on 6 cell and 30 on 9 cell) and I know the key to this lifespan is my custom thresholds.

 

Not necessarily, I've never used the threshold feature on my Thinkpads, and I have a 3,5 year old T43P, which hava only lost around 5 watt capacity, and my T400's who are around 1,5 year old have lost almost no capacity at all.

 

Wow, that is some good luck with batteries. Three years into my T42 my 9 cell was at about 1/2 capacity.

 

Yes, the batteries on Thinkpads seems pretty good, but I also have another T43P which is running 24/7 with the battery in place and that went from 84W from new to around 63W today, but still, it's pretty good in 3,5 year.

 

Even if you do not set the thresholds, the defaults on ThinkPads are less stressful for the battery than other manufacturers. I have seen notebooks which charge the battery every day a little (or at least the light comes on), if the computer is plugged in all the time. The default threshold on the ThinkPad is I think charge under 96% and charge to 100%. I think for many notebooks they charge as soon as it drops even as little as 1%. So that might contribute to why TP batteries are in better general shape.

 

Has anyone figured out how to set the battery thresholds? In the Power Manager Help it says that you can set custom thresholds, but there is no option to do this...

 

According to a post on forums.thinkpads.com it will return in the next version of Power Manager.

 

alright cool, thanks!