Urgent: Need help with serious T500 battery issue

Hi,

I really need some guidance. I have this approx 1 year old T500 running Vista. Everything is fully updated. About 1-2 months ago I suddently began to get only 1-2 hours of battery time on my 6-cell battery. It used to be around 5 hours. Nothing has changed on the laptop, apart from the regular updates for Windows and Lenovo. According to Power Manager the 6-cell battery capacity was down to 25% of its original capacity - so I ordered a new 9-cell.

Today I got the new 9-cell and it started well. After using the laptop on battery for 5 min Power Manager reported 71.28wt capacity (100% of its original capacity) and 7.4 hours battery time left.

After approx 1 hour I got an alarm and the battery was down to 2%!!! The exact same crap as with my 6-cell. Now It's charging and Power Manager reports that the capacity has dropped to 68wt.

What is going on here? Something is draining my battery time and at the same time physically damaging the battery! Please help - this is beyond my computer skills. Do I have a hardware failure in the T500 or what? Has anyone experienced this behaviour?

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Werner

 

Hmm it is possible that the original 6 cell was going bad, and the new 9 cell is a defective unit. I would ask Lenovo to replace the 9cell that is still under warranty, just so you can be sure.

However maybe the power adapter or connection to the battery on the laptop is bad? I'd ask support to see if they have any familiarity with this when you ask about the 9cell.

 

Well yes I was hoping for some miracle reply but I guess I saw this comming. I just can't imagine being wihtout my laptop for some lengthy repair time . Thanks for answering.

--
Werner

 

Please tell us what your average CPU utilization is. I think you might have something going on in the background that pushes the CPU to 100% and this would obviously eat the battery really really quickly.

To figure this out, open up Task Manager, go to Performance and tell us what it is on average.

 

Well OP seemed to indicate that the battery CAPACITY (not remaining charge) is dropping. Now, heat can degrade a battery, but that seems too quick? Though let us know if your machine is overheating.

 

Thanks for your help. And I have new information actually. First of all - jaredy is right. It is the battery capacity that is eaten.

A year ago I got a SSD harddrive and tonight I decided to put the old drive back in the Lenovo - just to make sure it isn't software related. Although I simply cannot imagine what software could physically damage a battery?

But I'm now writing this from the laptop - currently running on battery for 2 hours and I have around 86% or 6-7 hours left. The system is not updated - as it were 1 year ago. Im totally amazed. Seems like a software error doesnt it?

The laptop does not run hot. I have setup my laptop to be 99% quiet (integrated graphics etc) and the cooler for example hardly ever spins! It is using around 13 watt when I'm surfing the net.

I have absolutely NO idea where to start looking for the problem. I have read similar things about Windows 7 (e.g. http://windows7news.com/2010/01/31/battery-life-problems-on-laptops-with-windows-7/) but then again Im running Vista - but I cant help thinking that some Windows update for Vista could be the problem. However then I would imagine others reporting the same problem.

 

Well that's good I guess that you know it is software related (or so it seems). Have you run the battery all the way for 7hrs or whatever, just to really make sure .

 

He, no not yet, but I plan to stay up this night (10.30 PM here) until its completely empty. But it looks good and as you say I wont have to send the laptop to service. On the other hand if I dont get some (good) idea of what the problem is I'm actually not that much better off. Seems that every time I run with battery with the fully updated system, my (new) battery will loose 4% capacity. This does not give me that many chances to find the offending software before my battery is completely dead.

But my plan is this. When I have confirmed that the problem really IS software related, I will update everything from Lenov system update. Then see what happens. Just to get an idea if the problem is some Lenovo update or it's Vista update related. Does that make sense?

 

Ya. If you're willing you could try and revert the SSD back to the base install image. Or you could try uninstalling all the lenovo software packages that aren't necessary drivers. Try uninstalling power manager first, since that seems the most related.

 

I have now been running a couple of days with my new 9-cell and with my SSD drive and I have not seen the problems. I don't know what to say.

Of course, I'm glad the problem is gone, but what could the problem have been? I have changed 2 things these last couple of days. Battery and harddrive. But I have not had any other problems than this instant drainage - so I guess these hardware components were correctly inserted before. Strange...?

I have now run 3 complete cycles of battery time with this 9-cell. And I have gotten around 8 hours every time. And the "Full Charge Capacity" has not dropped at all.