Help! 9-Cell Battery, Remaining Capacity HIGHER than full charge capacity T410

Had my T410 for just under two weeks and posted comments on the owner's thread about my first seven days testing it. An hour ago, Power Manager 3.13 automatically opened, and noticed the full charge capacity DROPPED from 93.59Wh to 84.29Wh. But the remaining capacity is at 91.11 Wh.

I've keep the capacity around 97-98% most of the time. I went down to 80% capacity one time, and 92% five other times. Notice on the .jpg the cycle count is still one.

The battery temperature operates between 29C and 31C throughout the day and the room temperature is between 15C and 23C.

I have not done a battery maintenance reset or uploaded Power Manager 3.20 or any diagnostic software.

Can anyone make a recommendation on what they would do to determine if I have a defective battery or whether I can take better precautions to ensure the longevity of the battery?

 

You should drain the battery and recharge it to full. Just unplug your computer, save any documents or other important data, and use your computer until it shuts off. Let it sit overnight (I believe the minimum is 4 hours for LION batteries, can't remember). In the morning just plug it in and let it charge to full capacity. It should then report the correct capacity. But the important point is to drain the battery completely before recharging it.

 

Problem solved...

While waiting the 90 minutes to complete both a) set a system restore point and b) making a backup of the hard drive contents (60GB of which 98% was the orig factory setting); saw a thread post on page 5 about Power Manager 3.20.

Verified and clicked the link on the first post, installed version 3.20, restarted laptop.

After restart go to Power Manager. In Advanced mode, click Battery tab, click Battery Maintenance, click Custom Charge Mode (I changed to start charge below 41% and stop charge at 65% based partly on forum posts and my own expected usage), click OK.

On the day before travelling, I can change the stop charge to 95% and return it back to 65% when I'm in town for longer durations.

The full charge capacity refreshed itself back to 93.59Wh, hurray.

And the best part, didn't have to waste a cycle count.

Edit: went back into Power Manager and changed the setting back to "Automatically Optimize for Battery Lifespan" and make sure the box beneath this line is checked. When I decide to slowly get the battery down to 65% in say 5% intervals over the next seven days, I'll go back to the custom charge mode.

 

So it's great that Lenovo's power manager gives everyone the ability to do these things, and I don't mean any disrespect by saying this because it's your call to do this and it's probably important to you, but I still just don't get it. I think too many of us get too caught up in trying to get so many diminishing returns out of a battery then it's worth. Why spend all this time on trying to save 1 cycle? My view on it is, who cares? What's the gain on investment? Your battery lasts 1 more month over the course of 3-5 years?

Anyways, I really don't want to come across as bashing on you, I'm not, I think it's great that Lenovo gives us the choice so that if you want to micromanage the battery you can. I just look at it in terms of time spent for minimal returns. I just set a reasonable charge limit (ie: charge at 90 or something, stop when full) to minimize top ups and then just let it fly. Batteries were built to be used and replaced in 3 or so years whenever it dies. I could probably easily waste way more time then it's worth over the course of 3 years trying to add a few months of time onto the life of my battery. Just my 2 cents, not meant to be insulting in any ways!

 

if the charge cycle is not managed, the battery could die within 1.5 year for some people whom frequently connect and disconnect their laptop, and use it on battery power for a hour or so before returning to the ac power.

 

I've been using my laptop on battery for short cycles (hour or less on battery) for the last 2.5 years and my battery is doing just fine. Lenovo's power manager already prevents the battery from being topped up everytime the machine is plugged in, and setting a number like 90 percent or something insures that the battery at least gets used before being charged vs internal discharge. We could go back and forth on this all day, I'm not trying to change your mind, just stating my opinion that I often feel the time invested into trying to save just a little more total battery life doesn't seem worth it to me over the course of 3 years. If my battery died tomorrow after 2.5+ years of use I have no problem buying another one, and there's no data that shows that had I micromanaged the battery it would last any significant time period longer then what mine already has.

 

That really depend on the quality of the battery cell, and not all Lenovo's battery is created equally.... certainly if you looked at the Sanyo and Sony batteries, they weren't the most reliable as compared to the Panasonic ones.

1 hour on the battery power of my T60 uses around 45% battery, and sometimes i have to do this twice in the morning and afternoon. I incur 2 charge cycles in a day if i did this, and in little over a year i had to change the battery, because it incurred around 500 cycles and wouldn't hold more than 50% of the original charge level. Sanyo battery.

If i allowed the battery to charge at 40% level rather than always start charging at 80%, then after one year i can get around 240 charge cycles incurred doing this, and the battery would still hold around 85% of the original charge level. Panasonic battery. After around 570 cycles, this battery can still hold around 70% charge level.

But it depends on how you use the laptop, i keep couple of 80% charged spare batteries around, so in case i need more battery time, i can always use them in emergency.

 

I guess I do something similar to that battery management.

I bought another 6-cell battery to use with frequent docks/undocks. I typically try to keep that at around 40-60% and I just leave that in if I'm around an AC source.

My high capacity batteries on the otherhand, consists of a 9-cell primary and 9-cell secondary I leave those out of my laptop when I'm around an AC source. When I got just battery power only (ie, like an airport) I swap those in and use them to full capacity and charge them up to 100%, however I have 2 external battery chargers that can charge both without having to plug into my laptop I use those when I want to put those back in storage and I don't need the portability. When they reach 100%, and I don't need to be portable I toss them (back) in the fridge.

The net effect is I isolate use of the batteries that I want to maintain as high capacity and keep those fully charged. Storing fully charged batteries in a fridge negates the negative aspects of keeping them fully charged at room temp. The 6-cell battery is more of a convenience than having none. It only cost me $70, too.

Course then again, even though my laptop isn't docked, I'm usually near a power source with AC, so this may vary for...

 

Wait a second, I want to be sure we both understand this correctly. Traditionally a charge cycle = 100% use of the battery. If you use a battery to 50 percent, charge it, use it to 50 percent, charge it, that equals 1 charge cycle.

So if you are using 25% of the battery at a time and charging it you need to do that 4 times to equal 1 cycle.

If you are using a battery the same amount during any given day the charge cycles should accumlate the same no matter how or when you charge it.

Now, I've never tested if Lenovo's software tracks cycle counts in this fashion, that might be worth a test, but from recollection, I do believe I've done partial discharge/charges without the cycle count increasing. I will try to test this at home.

I think what you said above lends to Panasonic batteries definitely being better batteries.

 

Some older versions of the power manager (or maybe batteries?) doesn't work like that. When charge drops below certain threshold, it counts as a charge up, this is why some people can get artificially high charge cycle. I have seen a person using a Z61t with Sanyo battery of 14 months with 790 charge cycles, even though most of his charge are just top up between 70 to 100%, (he carries the laptop from one office site to another).

 

At least we can all agree that Power Manager is a great tool though for letting people do what they want. Some people bash it but I think it's great software for the techie minded person.

 

Yes i agree that Power Manager tools give people choices on what they should do to manage their battery life and longevity, which is something lacking in the consumer laptops.

 

Another question

Have a T410 with the 9-cell NVIDIA 256 discrete. I uploaded 3.20 as an update to the factory 3.13.

After the update to 3.20, noticed the 9-cell's Remaining Capacity on Power Manager is dropping about .25Wh every day even though its on AC power and the unit is on about 23 hours per day streaming Bloomberg TV.

Have owned the T410 for less than three weeks and have used 20% of the battery only once, followed by 7% discharges on five occasions. I'm still on cycle one and currently the battery is in "Maximum Lifespan Mode".

Is there a setting I need to change or do I have a defective battery? Perhaps its 3.20 but going back to 3.13 might cause problems?

Help

 

Even though you're on AC power, batteries do "leak" power a little. That's normal. That it's only .25Wh/day is pretty good. Mine does the same. It's nothing to worry about. Once it gets down to a certain percentage (I believe the default is 97%??), it will recharge back up to 100%.