weird battery behavior

My laptop is claiming the battery is dead. but it also claims it has 39 WH of charge in it (and 39 WH of charge capacity). When I unplug it while the laptop is on, it turns to computer off immediately (like if it didn't have a battery). Shouldn't it still be able to run off the battery even if it's dead? could this be a manufacturer defect? The battery was fine until 30 minutes or so ago when the battery LED started blinking orange.

If all I need is a new battery, then I'll accept that and buy a new battery. But it looks to me like there is some sort of manufacturer defect at work here (it would also explain how the battery died prematurely despite my care to prevent it from doing so).

 

Is this a genuine Lenovo battery? What's the FRU number and how long you had this battery for?

 

Yes it's genuine. 42t4511. The battery is two years old and the laptop is 2 years old as well.

 

Ah the Sanyo 9 Cell (42T4511), unfortunately it is a problematic battery as many users such as yourself found out.

Your best bet is to replace it, I don't think this battery was eligible for a recall which is surprising given the amount of users having problems with this particular FRU.

 

Oh. I thought it might be a problem with the laptop itself. Alrighty then.

 

wow. Seeing as it's a widespread problem, you'd figure Lenovo would add it to the recall list. If they don't recall it, then no more Lenovo products for me.

 

If enough people are pushing it then maybe it would be on the recall list. Personally i think Lenovo should shift to Boston Power cells, since they are of higher quality and capacity than the Sanyo cells that we are using now, and there is 3 years warranty from the OEM cell manufacturers, as compared to one year.

 

Speaking of which, I actually bought the Boston Power battery this summer. I returned it because I thought it was defective, it lost about 20 % of its charge after only 1 month, and maybe 5ish power cycles (this was the amount it was supposed to wear down after 3 years). I thought it was just a bad battery, but now seeing as my Lenovo battery and my Boston Power battery both drained down prematurely, I'm starting to think there's some defective circuitry inside the laptop itself.

 

There could be a defective circuitry, or you may just need to update the bios firmware.