ThinkPad battery meter program

I was wondering if anybody has the install files for that battery metering program that is used in the ThinkPad. The one were it shows the big green battery in the taskbar.

For my brother's ThinkPad it displays LOADS of information including discharge/charge rate, and even you can control at what percentage you want the thing to start charging at.

I'm coming from the Acer section, and would like to try and install this nifty little thing on my laptop. but my brother doesnt know much about his ThinkPad.

...he found this hook thing that pops out where the dvd drive is. no clue what it is, as its not in the manual either.

thanks

 

Maybe ibm/lenovo's website could have it?

 

The battery meter is a function of the Power Manager program, which is part of the Thinkvantage Software suite. Chances are that it won't work on your Acer, but if you want to give it a shot, here is the download site for that program.

The 'hook' that pops out by the optical drive is there to allow the drive to be removed. If you pull on it once it's out, the drive should pop out enough for you to remove it completely.

 

oh thnx guys. ill try the download.

so that hook thing can be used to remove the whole drive out of the laptop? like hotswap? i dont recall my brother saying his was a hotswap(TP R51). but then again, he didnt even know there was a battery meter program on it until months after!

 

yup, didn't think the program would work. it wont even install!
too bad, cuz it looks like a sweet program.

 

The R51 does have a removeable/hotswap drive, yes. The bay will also accept a 2.5" hard drive adapter module, or a secondary battery.

I can't honestly say that I use it very often. The battery meter just takes up space in the taskbar (so I got rid of it), and although the power profiles are helpful, I could easily get along without them.

 

yea the power profiles are easily taken by something like RM Clock, it was just that it could control when to charge the battery (at what percentage level), and it could do a discharge cycle. i thought it was pretty helpful to have something like that included.

the R51 is hotswappable? man, my brother has to learn how to read manuals or look information up on the internet before buying. i probably know just as much about his laptop as he does, and i've used it for less than 2 hrs in total!

great info btw.

 

Have you tried the IBM automatic updater? That should be able to install that program for you.

 

I beg to differ... I use it all the time.. I have my own profiles set up and I very oten change it based on my needs. Like if I am giving a presentation, I want all timers disabled.. When I do a disk-defrag, data backup, or some processor intensive program running, I want my screen saver disabled. When I am running out of battery, I want to optimize for battery and when I need full brightness when on batteries (like when I am showing stuff to others), I have a profile that gets the full brightness on.. Its an invaluable tool according to me.

Sorry, I don't think any of the ThinkVantage tools will install on a non-thinkpad, perhaps not even on another Lenovo laptop... just like any Acer or Dell or HP or Thoshiba or Sony etc.. tools will not install on any other... unless ofcourse you have resources to crack it.

 

Oh shoot! i thought the original poster had a thinkpad and just uninstalled the program by mistake. Sorry about the earlier suggestion gino, but the updater will not work for your lappy. yes i agree with cerebral about the usefulness of the battery utility as it is chock full O info and pretty handy. Also it lets you maximise your battery life and lets you know when the time comes to recondition the battery.

 

Does anyone know if the thinkvantage battery meter or the windows vista battery meter is more accurate? currently my

thinkvantage shows 93% and 3:45 remaining
while the windows shows 92% and 4:25 remaining....

there's a good 40 min difference...I wonder which is more accureate

 

How do you see the windows battery meter?

 

it is the graphic of a little batter in the system tray in the taskbar (mine is 2 little icons to the left of the clock)...just put your mouse over it and it will give you the percentage and time remaining...I am running vista btw

 

The TP meter is more accurate and shows the time before it hits 10%. Which would trigger your first alarm (if you've set it and will enter standby on default).

My meters are about 10 mins apart. So When the TP meter show 3:25 the windows one shows ~3:40. I just figure worst case I have 3:40 and 3:25 if I don't wanna stress the battery.

 

Oh ok I thought that was the thinkvantage power meter.

 

If you run it down till where the computer shuts off is that bad for the battery? I seem to do that alot.

 

no..actually that is supposed to be good if you fully discharge the batt and charge it up again....what is actually bad is plugging it in till it charges till 80% ..using it till 60%..then plugging it back in etc.

however...with the LiIon's...they are made for this...it was the old nickel metal hydrides that you really had to fully discharge in order to charge without damanging

the thinkvantage battery is the green battery right on the task bar....to the left of all the little icons in system tray

the windows one is on the taskbar within the system tray

I'll edit my above post...i made it sound confusing....sorry

 

Supposedly yes. If you read the Battery Guide, you will see that it's recommended you charge up when capacity hits about 20%, rather than let it reach near-critical levels.

At the other end, the high end, I use thresholds, charging only (if constantly connected to AC) when capacity hits 15% rather than the default setting of 96%. Those near-constant trickle charges seemingly do the long term life of your battery no favors.

Once in a while though it's recommended to reach near-critical so as to keep the battery gauge accurate.

 

whoa...i dimmed down my screen a little and now it shows

thinkvantage 87% remaining with 3:38 left

windows 86% remaining with 4:51 left....a 1:14 difference