Episode: 3557
Title: HPR3557: A short story about Lenovo and laptop batteries
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3557/hpr3557.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 01:22:18

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3557 for Tuesday, the 22nd of March 2022.
Today's show is entitled, a short story about Lenovo and laptop batteries.
It is hosted by Falky, and is about 10 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, how Lenovo is spicing up the life of their user with strange challenges.
Hi, it's Falky.
It has been a long time since I had a show on HPR, but now I have something to talk about.
I hope you won't be disturbed by my grandfather's clock in the background, but this isn't
about clocks.
You could say, this show's texts are Lenovo, batteries, frustration and solution.
So let me tell a real-life story.
My daily driver is a Lenovo Thinkpad T530.
I bought it some years ago from a company specialized on refurbishing business computers.
I really like this machine, especially because it works flawlessly with mangerolinox.
The speakers might be a little bit too low even when pushed to 130% but that's not
a big problem because there are headsets and external speakers.
The laptop mostly sits on a docking station at home, and this way I must have pushed the
lifetime of the battery to its limits.
So as I lost the Thinkpad from its usual place to quickly do something in another room,
I saw the indicator up in the waybar going down to 70%, 63%, and after only a few minutes
30%.
And a sweep over the indicator showed only 5 minutes left to zero.
So I at last saw that something was wrong, returned the laptop to its dock and used
InC-B.
The result was precisely what I was thinking, 8% left of capacity, so I would never get
more than some minutes out of it, and I got an explanation for the failed suspense I sometimes
had for a while now.
The RAM couldn't hold the session's dates because it was out of juice, you could say.
I had to solve this, nothing easier than that I thought, just order a new one, first
up Lenovo.
I like my machine and hoping to use it for a longer time I was prepared to pay for original
parts, but I couldn't find any battery for just my model on the Swedish Lenovo page.
I searched for Thinkpad T530 and Battery, only gave a result that physically couldn't
be the right one.
The connections set on the left, not as on the one I need in the center, if not even
Lenovo new.
I searched on the usual pages of Swedish computer electronics chops and often found nothing
or third-party products with prices more suited for original parts.
Next up, a cosier, and the result was a specialized shop for batteries.
I could have foreseen it.
It was battery-expert and punk SE.
The one you always get while searching for something battery on Swedish pages.
Ok, I gave them a chance, found directly a battery with higher capacity than the original
one, which they stated could fit into my Thinkpad model.
I ordered it and got after only two days early in the morning an email that the delivery
was done.
I would say the delivery service they use has a suitable name, early bird.
I couldn't hold myself and change the battery directly while not even having to be breakfast
and water let down.
My laptop greeted me with a message, the battery installed is not supported by the system
and will not charge.
Please replace the battery with the correct Lenovo battery for this system.
I let the start up continue and when I was up, when it was up, not I, I used NC-BXXX.
It gave me the right name of the battery and showed to that it had a capacity of 33.3
4 hours, but it only was charged to 4 WH and didn't charge at all.
After some time I looked again, same result, the warning was right, the battery wasn't
charging.
What should I do?
First I had to take the bus to work and leave the question for later.
Back at home the problem was nagging me and I searched on the nets.
There's over pages on issues with third-party batteries on different Lenovo laptops, all
stating the same or similar message.
I wasn't the only one, Lenovo seems to have a policy for the batteries similar to those
of the printer manufacturers.
I think that's unfair, they are forcing the users to buy the original parts but don't
even selling those for longer than some few years.
Okay, I can complain as much as I want, I had to solve it.
The search continued and I found an article named ThinkPad X230 battery patch.
stating the Lenovo's ThinkPad X230, T430 and T530, generation have a battery authenticity
check built in the embedded controller.
This prevents aftermarket batteries from being charged, luckily the EC can be patched.
You can read it yourself, it will be in the show notes.
In short, one must flash back to an older BIOS, in my case 2.76 and then flash the EC
with a patched firmware.
Eureka, it worked!
As far as the message in the beginning of the start, a process was gone, but still the
battery wasn't charging.
I had the laptop on into hours and nothing was changing.
I was frustrated and flashed back to the newest BIOS.
I gave up and contacted battery experts customer service, making a complaint because they
wrongly stated that this battery would work on my machine.
They answered quite quickly, wanting to get off FRU and ASM of the original battery.
I gave them the data they wished and they replied that they sent the right battery and gave
me the advice to start the laptop without any battery only plugged into the grid.
Then shut down and start again with a new battery.
This should reset the EC and it should forget about the original battery.
I followed this advice but get back to the by now hated message.
I wrote again to the customer service about this but got an idea to take a last, a final
attempt.
I combined the solutions from bystrump.be and the customer service.
I flashed the BIOS to 2.76, compiled and flashed the firmware patch, removed the battery
before rebooting, let the system start up or the way to my sway desktop, shut down, replaced
the new battery in the laptop, connected it to the grid without starting up and got to
bad.
The next morning I nearly ran to the place of my thinkpad and the battery indicator on
the lock was blank but I left it lightly blinking in the evening.
I took it as a good sign.
After the device and when all was up I saw a big 100% of the waybar and in she was giving
the 100% to.
I unplugged the laptop, waited for a moment, saw the battery status going down to 99%
and showed charging after plugging again.
It's solved.
Afterwards I activated the TCP-ACP-I such bad process in system D and now my thinkpad
doesn't charge before going down to 40% and only up to 80%.
I'm hoping this will help to extend the lifetime of my new battery.
I'm left with a little less positive feeling about Lenovo.
I really like their thinkpets and will buy another one the day this one will die hoping
this is far in the future.
But their battery policy is really faulty.
Thinkpets are costly enough that they don't have to strangle their users to use just their
spare parts, especially when they are unwilling or unable to deliver just those parts.
That was my little real-life story.
I'm hoping you enjoyed it as much as I did.
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