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Service Hints & Tips

Document ID: MIGR-47KMN9

TP 1400 - Tips for using the battery

Applicable to: World-Wide

Symptoms:

1. The system battery life is shorter than usual.
2. The system enters hibernation while the fuel gauge shows capacity remaining.
3. The battery capacity decreases significantly with the system powered off.

Configuration:
Any model of the i Series 1400

Additional information:
The i 1400 Series ThinkPad do not have 'smart' batteries. That means that the battery does not report its capacity to the system. Instead, a microprocessor in the system monitors and tracks the battery's capacity.

When a battery is removed from the system and replaced by another battery, the system must try to determine the second battery's capacity by looking at the voltage. It is difficult to determine a battery's capacity by the voltage if the battery is not either fully charged or discharged. Therefore, it is possible for the displayed battery capacity to be different from the actual battery capacity.

When the actual battery capacity is different from the displayed capacity, the above symptoms can occur. To realign the displayed capacity with the actual capacity immediately, follow the instructions below. Otherwise, the system will align the two capacities after a couple of full charge/discharge cycles. To reduce the chance of this issue occurring, it is recommended to place fully charged or discharged batteries into the system.

Procedure for aligning displayed capacity with the actual capacity:

1. Power on the system and press "F1" when the IBM logo screen appears.
2. Press arrow key to select Power Management and press "Enter".
3. Set "Battery-low Warning Beep" option to "Disabled".
4. Set "Sleep Upon Battery-low" option to "Disabled".
5. Save the changes and boot to the Win98 environment.
6. Press "Fn+F2" open the Power Management Properties.
7. Click the "Alarms" tab.
8. Set "Set off critical battery alarm when power level reaches:" to 0 %
9. Fully discharge battery capacity by using the system on battery only.
10. Recharge the battery to 100%.

	Search Keywords
	Document Category	Power Management
	Date Created	04-05-99
	Last Updated	17-05-99
	Revision Date	26-05-2000
	Brand	IBM ThinkPad
	Product Family	ThinkPad i Series 1400
	Machine Type	All
	Model	All
	TypeModel
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