Did I break my laptop battery?

Nocha · 2020-03-23 00:01:12

Maybe this belong in newbie corner, but I'm not really sure what happened. I have a Thinkpad x230 with a battery that I've had for about four years now. I've been running Arch for about a week now, but recently the battery doesn't seem to be working. The battery manager says the charge is full, but it just turns off if I unplug it. Even if if boot to BIOS the battery doesn't provide any power. Did I do something wrong that permanently broke the battery or is it just a coincidence?

seth · 2020-03-23 06:52:01

The Thinkpad x230 is 6-8 years old… output of "acpi -V"?

And to your main question: things you could have done to break the battery are:
1. Leave it on the radiator
2. Punch it with a screwdriver
3. Have the notebook on permanent power supply (something everybody does, but that does age the battery faster)

Killing batteries by software, let alone accidentally, is virtually impossible.
There's some phone malware that drains it faster (I believe one called "The facebook app" or something…) and theoretically an UEFI infection could stash it from the OS.

sabroad · 2020-03-23 11:18:15

Nocha wrote:

I have a Thinkpad x230 with a battery that I've had for about four years now.

https://www.newark.com/pdfs/techarticle … /LIBMG.pdf

The typical estimated life of a Lithium-Ion battery is about two to three years or 300 to 500 charge cycles, whichever occurs first

After this, the battery can be expected to fail to hold charge or maintain operating voltage.

Nocha wrote:

I've been running Arch for about a week now, but recently the battery doesn't seem to be working. Did I do something wrong that permanently broke the battery or is it just a coincidence?

If, say, your battery life has gone from 1h to 0h in the course of a week, then it's simply time to replace the battery. Luckily that's physically easy with the x230.

Trilby · 2020-03-23 13:03:34

sabroad wrote:

After this, the battery can be expected to fail to hold charge or maintain operating voltage.

True, but I've never heard of a laptop battery's capacity just falling off a cliff as the OP implies has happened (at least not just from aging).

I have a laptop that was in almost continuous use for 5 years, and it was purchased used with a used battery before that. The battery when "fully charged" will only last 20 minutes or so, but it doesn't just fail to provide any power.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-03-23 13:04:29)

Nocha · 2020-03-23 17:28:50

seth wrote:

output of "acpi -V"?

Battery 0: Unknown, 100%
Battery 0: design capacity 9223 mAh, last full capacity 4826 mAh = 52%
Adapter 0: on-line
Thermal 0: ok, 46.0 degrees C
Thermal 0: trip point 0 switches to mode critical at temperature 103.0 degrees C
Cooling 0: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 1: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 2: x86_pkg_temp no state information available
Cooling 3: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 4: intel_powerclamp no state information available
Cooling 5: Processor 0 of 10

sabroad wrote:

If, say, your battery life has gone from 1h to 0h in the course of a week, then it's simply time to replace the battery. Luckily that's physically easy with the x230.

I felt the batter life was pretty good still. acpi used to say it was at around 70% capacity. You have a point though. Another thing I forgot to mention was that I was getting sharp drops in battery charge during normal use: Power manager would show plenty of charge left, then there was a drop to 5%. Thanks for the Li-ion battery manual, I'll definitely take care of it better next time. I think think bad charging and storage practices hurt my battery life a bit, but it still lasted pretty long.

seth · 2020-03-23 17:40:39

Battery 0: Unknown, 100%

It doesn't know whether it's charging…

If you unplug the wire, the system powers down immediately? Like *IMMEDIATELY* (not "in the next few seconds")?

ewaller · 2020-03-23 17:41:37

You might try powering down the laptop, removing the battery, and removing external power; then let it sit for a few minutes. Power it back up from external power, and install the battery.
Can't hurt. It has fixed things in my HP Envy more than once. The important part being the laptop be left alone for a while with no power source.

Edit: Also -- don't punch the battery back with a screwdriver. It won't just 'break' the battery; the battery will likely enter inferno mode in a somewhat unpleasant exothermic reaction.

Last edited by ewaller (2020-03-23 17:45:10)

Nocha · 2020-03-23 18:17:02

seth wrote:

Battery 0: Unknown, 100%
It doesn't know whether it's charging…
If you unplug the wire, the system powers down immediately? Like *IMMEDIATELY* (not "in the next few seconds")?

Yes, the battery doesn't seem to provide any power. Would the output of tlp-stat help at all? I think it mostly tells the same story.

+++ ThinkPad Battery Status: BAT0
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/manufacturer                   = LGC
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/model_name                     = 45N1029
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/cycle_count                    = (not supported)
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_full_design             =  93240 [mWh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_full                    =  48790 [mWh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_now                     =  48790 [mWh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/power_now                      =      0 [mW]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/status                         = Unknown (threshold may prevent charging)

/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_start_threshold         =     96 [%]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_stop_threshold          =    100 [%]

Charge                                                      =  100.0 [%]
Capacity                                                    =   52.3 [%]

ewaller wrote:

You might try powering down the laptop, removing the battery, and removing external power; then let it sit for a few minutes. Power it back up from external power, and install the battery.
Can't hurt. It has fixed things in my HP Envy more than once. The important part being the laptop be left alone for a while with no power source.

I'll give it a try. -> UPDATE: Didn't work

Last edited by Nocha (2020-03-23 20:06:38)

Arch Linux

#1 2020-03-23 00:01:12

Did I break my laptop battery?

#2 2020-03-23 06:52:01

Re: Did I break my laptop battery?

#3 2020-03-23 11:18:15

Re: Did I break my laptop battery?

#4 2020-03-23 13:03:34

Re: Did I break my laptop battery?

#5 2020-03-23 17:28:50

Re: Did I break my laptop battery?

#6 2020-03-23 17:40:39

Re: Did I break my laptop battery?

#7 2020-03-23 17:41:37

Re: Did I break my laptop battery?

#8 2020-03-23 18:17:02

Re: Did I break my laptop battery?

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