Thinkpad 600x battery failing to charge

[Guest]

Archived from groups: ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad 600x. The problem I'm having is that the battery is
failing to charge. After hours of being left on charge the power still
registers 0%. I've tried three different batteries all with the same
problem.

I'd really appreciate any advice or comments.

Thanks in advance.

Emmett

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Buy a new battery. The 600 series battery is notorious for failing after a
year or so
"Emmett" <EmmettPower@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1108668354.484798.42320@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have a Thinkpad 600x. The problem I'm having is that the battery is
> failing to charge. After hours of being left on charge the power still
> registers 0%. I've tried three different batteries all with the same
> problem.
>
> I'd really appreciate any advice or comments.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Emmett
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Battery's bad, replace it.

TJ

Emmett wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I have a Thinkpad 600x. The problem I'm having is that the battery is
> failing to charge. After hours of being left on charge the power still
> registers 0%. I've tried three different batteries all with the same
> problem.
>
> I'd really appreciate any advice or comments.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Emmett

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am BillGatus of Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assim
[General Protection Fault]

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

> (I set my limit to 1% just for test). I then covered the two center
> pins of the batt with paper, and started the system. It ran for 1
hour
> and 15 minutes on that darn battery! The system thinks it is
connected
> to AC power. This says to me that the charging circuit is faulty.
Care
> to comment?

I don't remember fersure but I think the 600E had five battery
contacts, right? Two power, one temp sense, two I2C? You were probably
disabling I2C.

Anyway, the micro in the battery is confused, or has corrupted EEPROM
contents. The power management controller in the laptop is seeing this
and shutting the unit down to prevent over-discharge.

In SOME cases it is possible to reset the micro (and fix problems of
this nature) by opening the battery pack and disconnecting the cells,
then shorting the terminals on the PCB where the cells used to connect,
but this is a last resort that usually won't work (except on the Compaq
Armada M300 batteries, which go crazy once a week and practically need
to be reset every time you charge them). The EEPROM has a finite write
life and it's usually written at least twice during each
charge/discharge cycle.

A re-calibration will fix the unit (if fixable) without you needing to
open anything, but I'm not sure if IBM provides a utility to do this on
the 600E. Basically what the utility does is to force the power
management controller to ignore what the battery is saying about
remaining energy capacity and simply run the unit down to death. That
way the battery's gas gauge IC can integrate I over t all the way down
to the "real" empty point of the cells.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Guys,

Thanks for the comments. Getting back to the 600x As I've tried three
different batteries all with the same result I still wonder if there is
scope for the charging circuitry in the laptop to be faulty? Is there
any way of testing this or testing the batteries?

Thanks for your help.

Regards

Emmett

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Emmet, try running your laptop with just the battery, but cover up the
two center connector with a piece of tape. Doing this will allow the
computer to receive the 10.8 V from the two outer contacts(if the batt
is somewhat working). Let it run and see if you get good enough run
time. If ok, then at least we'll know that the Li-Ion is somewhat ok. I
think that since they are wired in prallel internally ('i've rebuilt a
couple myself), the main problem is that they are not matched pair, so
one will die before the other, hence the typical drop from 90-100
percent to around 50 when it started to act up.

Emmett wrote:
> Guys,
>
> Thanks for the comments. Getting back to the 600x As I've tried three
> different batteries all with the same result I still wonder if there
is
> scope for the charging circuitry in the laptop to be faulty? Is there
> any way of testing this or testing the batteries?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On 20 Feb 2005 12:40:33 -0800, "Emmett" <EmmettPower@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Guys,
>
>Thanks for the comments. Getting back to the 600x As I've tried three
>different batteries all with the same result I still wonder if there is
>scope for the charging circuitry in the laptop to be faulty? Is there
>any way of testing this or testing the batteries?
>
>Thanks for your help.
>
>Regards
>
>Emmett

The only way to check the 600X pack is to try a known good one.
The test pack does not need to be new; it only needs to charge and
discharge in a TP600X. IBM had a TP600X utility called
batcheck.exe that basically verifies the condition of the pack
electronics -- working or not and if so -- the cells' approximate
condition i.e., capacity normal or not for whatever criteria IBM
has programmed in That doesn't seem to be age per se but
probably counts cycles in some way along with voltage under load..

One of the two center pack pins is for a thermistor. IBM also had
a resistance (ohm meter) check method for that on their site. The
other center pin is the pack electronics data line.

Disabling (covering) either will stop any charging at all and may
result in flashing LEDs but will still leave the pack connected so
it can be drained until the internal safety circuits cut off. But
more likely the PC will cut off first at about 10V under load..

Be advised doing this with borderline cells (condition) can
result in an unchargeable pack if the pack electronics sense a
possible dangerous cell imbalance or condition. New cells may
not fix this.

New cells won't restore the electronics/batcheck reading to new.
They may result in a perfectly usable full capacity pack but with
very inaccurate fuel gauge reading after about 60-70% is reached.
This is the infamous TP600X pack anomaly-trait.

There seems to be no way to easily reset the pack electronics
short of possibly reprogramming them to new and that would mean a
lot of effort and knowledge of the exact ICs used, circuit,
electronics, equipment and chip programming.

Good luck.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Cmdrdata,

Thanks for the suggestion. I've tried covering the middle two
connectors as suggested but there is still no charge getting to the
batteries. All three are registering as empty and not charging.

Regards

Emmett

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Emmett,

Did you ever find a resolution to this problem?

It sounds like I'm having the exact same problem. I too assumed that
it was a battery problem - battery says it's charging but will always
show 0% charged, if unplugged for even a second the power instantly
shuts off. It had been working fine for the last year, but then one
day, it went from working fine, to not working at all, there was no
'gradual dropoff'.

A friend of mine has the exact same model of laptop I have (IBM
Thinkpad 600E). His battery will last about half an hour in his
machine, while mine was lasting about an hour in my machine. After
swapping batteries, my battery worked in his machine, but I was still
having the same problem with mine (0% charge).

So then we thought, maybe it's the cable/power supply, so we swapped
those, still no change.

Through process of elimination, I'm now thinking it's something built
into the laptop, and not a simple battery problem.

I was just wondering if you had any success with getting yours fixed,
if you did, please let me know what it was, and how much it ended up
costing you.

So far, I'm in $200.00 (CDN) for a new battery.