T430 won't run on AC, battery won't charge, no "battery charging threshold" to be found

All of a sudden my T430 won't charge the battery when I have the AC plugged in. I have the charging thresholds set at "start at 60% and stop at 90%". Now, when I hover my mouse over the battery icon in the tray it only brings me to Power Manager and in there there is no Battery Maintenance area I can check to see if the thresholds have been changed or what.

OK, I press the ThinkVantage button and everything it accesses has changed as well. I swear I didn't voluntarily change anything. There is no Battery Maintenance section to be found. Which wouldn't be such a problem if my T430 would just flat out run on AC but there is no "plugged in" AC light lit on the T430 case.

So, either the charger itself has gone south or the battery has died (even though it shows 50% charge). I just tried taking out the battery and starting up on AC and nothing happens.

Any way to check if it's the AC adapter that's hosed? (other than the fact that it doesn't seem to be working). And, I have a T61 sitting in my closet. Will its battery charger work with my T430? Also a W520 whose power brick looks like it would fry my T430. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Hey all, you can pick any one bit of information I provided above and comment on it if you would please.

1) You've experienced the Battery Maintenance tab disappearing in Power Manager due to maybe some update (it's there in PM 3 on my W520, not there on PM 4 on my T430, at least not now)

2) You've had problems maybe with your power brick dying on you and that's why the battery isn't charging.

3) You know whether or not I can hook up my T61 power brick (65w) to my T430 (its power brick is 90w) without any bad stuff happening, ya know, just to try to troubleshoot this mess.

4) Your battery has just up and died and everything I'm going through is caused by that. Maybe.

5) Fortunately I still have a working laptop, my W520, and I can cross reference with it stuff I can't access on my T430. Any minute now the battery will completely die on the T430 and it will basically just be a paper weight without even being able to run it on AC.

 

If another power brick has the same voltage (check the label) and the plug fits then it will work. Notebook manufacturers usually maintain power brick compatibility over many years.

John

 

Amazingly enough, the T61 brick is the same wattage (90w) and fits my T430. But, alas, nothing happens when I plug it in. The battery still is draining slowly. The T430 brick powers up the T61 so at least I know it works.

Still no "Battery Maintenance" tab at the top of Power Manager. A guy could theorize that the T430 battery has died so there's no battery for the "Battery Maintenance" tab to even be up there (which is a stretch) but still doesn't explain why the T430 still doesn't run strictly on AC. Even if I take the battery out of the T430 it doesn't run on AC.

What, a simultaneous meltdown of the battery/Power Manager/ AND the adapter being able to get juice into the T430?

 

I know you are all following my exploits so I thought I'd keep you updated: it just may be that I have a faulty power jack, ya know, where you plug in the adapter cord? The yellow one with the single pin in the middle? Yup, not easy. Completely dismantling my T430 just to get to that "DC-In Sub Card" really wasn't on my list of essential things to do. I may just buy another used T430 off ebay and start all over with that one.