[Thinkpad] Battery problem I've never seen before

Discussion:

STeve Andre'

2018-08-22 09:09:32 UTC

I thought I'd seen just about everything, but this is new to

me. I have a three year old W541 which I like other than the

chicklet keyboard. The battery is now down to under half its

original life so I got a new one.

Putting it in the laptop I found that it was at 0.0 Wh, and not

charging. Great I thought, a bad battery. But putting the old

battery back in resulted in no charging, either. The battery had

about 43 Wh but lost power every time I unplugged the AC adaptor.

nothing I have done has charged either battery so I think the W541

is at fault.

Has anyone seen this kind of error? Any ideas? I just checked the

battery level and the old battery has charged about 1 Wh in many

hours. Weird!

--STeve Andre'

David Ross

2018-08-22 09:51:18 UTC

Permalink

Hi STeve,

I had this happen with an older machine, I decided I'd blown the fuse in the charging circuit when I swapped batteries. If that's the problem and you're out of warranty there's not much to be done other than a new motherboard or an external battery charger.

Possibly someone knows how to diagnose this for certain.

David

Post by STeve Andre'
I thought I'd seen just about everything, but this is new to
me. I have a three year old W541 which I like other than the
chicklet keyboard. The battery is now down to under half its
original life so I got a new one.
Putting it in the laptop I found that it was at 0.0 Wh, and not
charging. Great I thought, a bad battery. But putting the old
battery back in resulted in no charging, either. The battery had
about 43 Wh but lost power every time I unplugged the AC adaptor.
nothing I have done has charged either battery so I think the W541
is at fault.
Has anyone seen this kind of error? Any ideas? I just checked the
battery level and the old battery has charged about 1 Wh in many
hours. Weird!
--STeve Andre'
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Prof. David A. Ross
Dept. of Mathematics, University of Hawaii
808-956-4673 ***@math.hawaii.edu

Jon Etkins

2018-08-23 17:20:11 UTC

Permalink

What wattage power brick are you using? I believe the W541 came with a 135W adapter, and I recall there was circuitry that detected the use of a lower power adapter and made the thing switch into "limp mode." I remember I found instructions on the web to disable this "feature" which involved opening up the TP and shorting a couple of pins on the DC IN board, IIRC. Just a thought - could possibly be related to your problem.

Cheers,
Jon.

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STeve Andre'

2018-08-30 03:20:33 UTC

Permalink

Thanks David & Jon -- I've determined that it is indeed the fuse.

I might be tempted to change it out myself but I have a 5 year

warranty so I'll let them do it. I also have what seems to be a

keyboard controller issue, so a motherboard will fix both.

--STeve