Windows 7 and battery power

I'm stumped and hope someone may be able to help. 'Just installed Win 7 Ultimate (SP1) on my R61i (7650-DHU) after upgrading to SSD (installed Middleton's bios, too). Performance improvement is dramatic and great but I cannot run on battery power! Power Manager V 3.66 is installed and shows the battery is present and gives status, but the computer only runs when it is plugged in. Unplug the power supply and it dies immediately. Shut down properly with it plugged in and try to boot on battery power and nothing. Dead. Any ideas or solutions? I am clearly missing something. 'Searched the forum here, the ThinkPad forum, and Lenovo support without luck. Thanks in advance....

 

Can you boot to the BIOS setup when running on battery? If not, i wonder if the battery has chosen this moment to die. If it is the original then it must be a few years old.

John

 

Thanks for replying. Unfortunately I cannot boot using the battery. Dead. It is like the battery isn't there at all. Power Manager shows the battery as present and charged. I did buy a new battery (not OEM because those are *way* too expensive) but it will not boot with the old battery in - which is still good for about a half the normal operating time - or the new one. I looked through BIOS and all looks in order.

 

Probably a long shot, but try unplugging your R61 and then holding down the power button for 30 seconds, then give it a try again. Interestingly enough, that's sorted out some random issues on both my T500 and my old Averatec before, so you never know.

 

John & MidnightSun,

Thanks for taking the time to respond and for the suggestions. I will post any progress and if/when a solution appears will describe what works. In the mean time any and all ideas are welcome.

 

Windows 7 Battery Notification Messages - Engineering Windows 7 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

 

Thanks Thors.Hammer. The link you provided deals primarily with purported inaccuracy in Win 7's reporting of battery status and condition, and a fair amount of editorial comment. I didn't see anything in the thread relating to a battery that is recognized by the power manager (which shows it present and 100% charged), but that will not power the system at all. I have checked and reinstalled ACPI drivers for Win 7 and ThinkPad 7650-DHU (Model R61i large screen w/o IEEE 1394). I've tried using the "native" Win 7 ACPI alone and also with the Lenovo driver prescribed for my model and their Power Manager application. The behavior is as if the ACPI drivers are not installed, conflict with something else, or are not the correct drivers & apps.

 

How old is the battery?

 

It is brand new. "I did buy a new battery (not OEM because those are *way* too expensive) but it will not boot with the old battery in - which is still good for about a half the normal operating time - or the new one."

 

Yea, I misread that the first time. I thought it read it would not boot from the new one, but it would boot from the old genuine Lenovo battery.

 

Do you know the manufacturer of the Original battery? Sanyo's tend to have a habit of dying prematurely, I already had 2 die out on me. Our office server which is a 4 year old R61e uses a LG battery and that's still going strong to this day, the Panasonic batteries aren't that shabby either.

 

Sorry for the delay in response and thanks for checking in. (I was into March Madness.) The original battery only says "manufactured by Lenovo". To Summarize neither new nor old battery is able to power the computer. The new one shows 100% charge and all the metrics like AHrs is read by the utility. The old battery needs replacement and the notification says so, but the old battery should still at least boot the machine.

 

Battery mystery solved. Bad new battery though it showed 100% charged. I RMA'd the new battery to the supplier and they replaced it with another. The replacement works fine. Thanks to all who replied to my request for help.