RE: z50 battery oddity

[Khoa Tran <piper_the%hotmail.com@localhost>]

For what it's worth, I've tried www.batteryrefill.com for my old Thinkpad 570.

I am in Québec City, so if I throw the battery in a padded envelope, it'll get 
to you in a day or two. I'll send you another e-mail from my IBMCA address, and 
you can reply to that with a mailing address. You can buy me a coffee the next 
time I'm in mtl to cover postage :P

I am curious though, because in my experience, old laptop batteries that don't 
hold a charge still get up to their rated voltage with the mains plugged in -- 
they just don't hold it for very long once you remove the power.


~k

> From: mouse%Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA@localhost
> Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:32:02 -0400
> To: port-hpcmips%NetBSD.org@localhost
> Subject: Re: z50 battery oddity
>
>>> [...z50...battery looks dead...]
>> What does the battery monitor software in Windows CE say? (I think
>> there's a graphical battery meter in RapidAccess, if I'm not
>> mistaken).
>
> You're not. I wasn't aware of that; I knew of only the "Power" item in
> the control panel and the battery calibration app under Start,
> Programs, WorkPad, Battery Calibration.
>
> The Rapid Access battery meter shows 0%. The Power control panel (also
> available by double-clicking the battery in Rapid Access) says External
> and Good. (I suspect External means it's running off mains power. The
> battery is dead enough I can't try running it off battery power.) The
> battery calibration app starts and is willing to start a calibration
> run, but I haven't let it finish. (I suspect it might not finish
> unattended; when I tried it, it kept popping up a modal alert box about
> the backup battery being "very low or missing" - which has been normal;
> I replaced the backup batteries and that popup went away for maybe all
> of a couple of weeks.) I've started another battery calibration run;
> I'll see what it does.
>
>> Failing that, I do have a couple of spare batteries lying around, in
>> addition to a spare AA battery holder. I could possibly lend you one
>> of these for testing purposes.
>
> Well, I've been considering ordering a new battery from a place I found
> that sells (or says they sell, at least) z50-compatible new batteries
> with longer run time than the originals. Perhaps I should just order
> one, though I rather hesitate to do that without being sure the fault
> is in the battery pack rather than the charging circuit in the z50.
> Maybe a loaner is a good idea - where are you geographically?
>
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