battery maintenance/threshold doesn't work!

so, for battery health, I've been using battery maintenance, so it will only recharge when it gets below a certain %, rather that just continually charge it.
this used to work, but recently it hasn't been, and just shows 100% when plugged in.
i tried uninstalling the lenovo battery/power software, but it's still broken.
any ideas?

 

*bump*
anyone?

 

no one else has this problem, or can acknowledge anything?

 

So, I take that your battery never charges anymore (or at least you wouldn't know) and just says 100% regardless of what's going on in the software settings? If so, try discharging the battery to 0% or when your computer turns off and see if it is able to charge.

 

I had the same problem with a Toshiba that I luckily bought from Costco. I returned it w/o any questions asked.

So I don't think this is a new problem.

 

no, it charges,
the problem is, it's not supposed to continue charging once it's at 100%
optimally, it'll stop charging when at 100%, and start charging when battery drops to 96%.
mine stays at 100%, which means it's always charging

 

I don't understand. If your battery is at 100% and you're plugged in, that just means you aren't using battery power and that's why your battery life percentage isn't changing.

 

Seems pretty normal to me. If you have the "stop charging" threshold set at 100%, then when the AC adapter is plugged it will continue to charge to 100%.

When you run it on battery to, let's say, 98% charge and plug the AC adapter in, does it continue to charge to 100%?

 

No it doesn't.

You seem to think the power supply is merely a "charger", and that when plugged in you're still running off battery, so you've concluded that the "charger" must be continually replenishing the draining battery to keep it at 100%, else the meter would otherwise be dropping.

If that's how you think it works, then plug in with NO battery and get back to us!







"Charging will start when below __% and stop at __%" (<-- it's not lying)

 

Have you changed any of the settings?

 

no, but i installed the power manager again.
at least leon gets it.

clearly, if it wasn't charging when at 100%, it would slowly drop, but it stays rock steady at 100% all day every day

 

My T61 shows similar behaviour as that of the OP, and I think everything is ok - it's a feature, not a bug.

I have my battery thresholds set to ~50%. When I'm off AC, this means that the batteries will discharge completely if I never plug in. When I do plug back in, charging will not take place unless I'm below the threshold. The AC behaves like a power source and will not charge until I hit the threshold, so if I'm at 70% when I plug in, it will remain that way indefinitely.

 

Unless something has changed since the T40 series this is false. My school uses T series Thinkpads exclusively. If a machine is plugged in, it's charging. You wear out the batteries this way. We had many a battery die when doing this. The only way to guarantee that the battery didn't go haywire was to charge it, and remove it when in your room/overnight/etc. Otherwise these batteries didn't last a year. Doing this extended my life to 3 years.

 

Then what's the point of the Power Manager thresholds? Clearly the way it works is that plugging in will NOT charge unless the battery reaches the set threshold.

I disagree. My wife's Dell 700m has been plugged in constantly for the last 2-3 years, and the battery works well even when unplugged.

To me, removing the battery when on AC is a huge inconvenience. It seems that stories of batteries being destroyed this way is becoming an old wives tale! Modern battery management SW like Power Manger eliminates the AC problems.

Anyone else stay plugged in most of the time? Any problems? Have you set your PM thresholds?

 

I have a 2 year old Dell Laptop that was used primarily on AC, with battery plugged in. Still going strong.

As for the original post. I don't understand. If the AC is in, is it even using battery power? Why should the battery be going below 100% if it's not even being used .. unless the power management utility causes the AC to act only as a charger.

 

Hmm. I know for a fact it was a problem on T40 and T42. Perhaps power manager sucked then, or we had crappy batteries?