Windows 10 also has a build in command for checking the battery capacitiy. Just type "powercfg /batteryreport" in the command prompt and you get a very detailed overview over you battery's capacity history and runtime.
Just bought a T430 and installed Manjaro KDE on it, after replacing the memory and SSD. It's looks brand new and with your tip of using tlp stat (tlp-stat) I discovered the battery capacity is still 91.5% which is great. Thanks for the video.
Thanks for this! Someone on the Reddit ThinkPad Community forum posted a question about buying batteries for their x220 earlier. I just shared the link to this video with them.
if you wanna use the X220 for some more years, i recommend buying the original 9 cell battery with 94Wh. Stop charging them at 94% and restart charging at 90%. And they will last for more than 5 years. The problem is that the LG cells in those high capacity batteries (63Wh 6 cell / 94Wh 9 cell) really hate the charging at high voltage. I have one of the 6 cells 63Wh in a x145 and it´s nearly dead after just 450 cycles and 2 years. Another identical 6 cell lasted for 1200 cycles and nearly 5 years with the charging limits i told. I´m now using the 9 cell 94Wh with the same LG cells in my X230 with the same charging limits. After 200 cycles it still has full capacity...
I bought the 9 cell 94 watt hour battery directly from Lenovo for the X220 for around $110 USD, and holy fuck, it's a beast.. That battery, plus the 16GB RAM upgrade I did, and the 240GB mSATA SSD and a 500GB caddy SSD have made this laptop so damn badass.. I still feel proud pulling it out in front of people with much more expensive laptops.. All up, my entire costs for the laptop and upgrades was $450 USD - The only thing I might do next as a final upgrade is replace the WiFi card to have AC speeds and Bluetooth 4.0, and an LCD upgrade if I can find something on the forums that people have recommended as being better than the stock screen..
Just reposting in case you missed it: This is required reading as far as I'm concerned for X220 owners x220.mcdonnelltech.com/resources/ I've done the WiFi card Bluetooth upgrade on this channel. Lots of information on screen swapping too.
@Pervy_Sage Not 100% sure about the 90Wh comment, but these are the available battery types: 4 cells 1950mAh 0A36281 6 cells 5600mAh 0A36282 9 cells 9000mAh 0A36283 6 cells 5800mAh 0A36280
@Pervy_Sage So you want a 9 cell and internal battery? Again, why are you fixated on the size of the battery only? If you want two batteries, then that limits you to the Battery Bridge systems like the x40-x70 era machines. If you just want a 70+Whr battery, you can go back as far as the x00 series, but the battery life will not be comparable at all. So if the cost is the main factor and battery is the second, with no other factors being considered, then get the newest generation you can afford and be prepared to buy a new battery for it since most of them will come with a used battery.
I wasn't acutely aware 3rd party manufacturers found a way around the battery lock chip on the x230...I'll keep that in mind when I have to replace mine. Thanks.
@@LaptopRetrospective I was about to ask this question. So now you can just buy a third party battery and plug it in and use it no problem? I assumed a BIOS mod was still needed for the X230.
@@LaptopRetrospective Thanks for the reply. Do you mean if using an old x220 battery on the x230? There's an updated description on Sebi's Random Tech video about the ThinkPad T430 that you might find interesting, not sure if it will apply to the x220 or x230: "2019 EDIT: Starting with T430 BIOS version 2.82, EC version 1.14, Lenovo has started to include a digital signature that prevents this whitelist from being removed, the EC patch for T420 keyboards, and other aspects of this mod from working. DO NOT upgrade the BIOS to any version newer than 2.81. Starting with the xx30 series of ThinkPads, Lenovo began blocking out third-party/aftermarket batteries from working properly in their laptops." From the video: "ThinkPad T430: Getting rid of Lenovo's Battery Whitelist" I've seen that third party batteries on ebay give a compatible parts list (I think for original batter codes) so i'll check that too.
In July of 2018 I bought an X220 battery from (whom I assume is) the official Lenovo seller on Amazon for 60 USD ish. As of today my battery has 97 cycles, 78Wh left and claims to be manufactured by LG Chem on July 2017 (I am checking it on windows with Lenovo's power manager). I don't know if that's good, back, lucky or boasting but thought you'll find it interesting
Interesting, I'm guessing it has all the correct Lenovo markings on the case? There is no official Lenovo Store or seller in Canada at any rate. Lenovo's official US website shows all X220 batteries still in their online order system as out of stock. I did manage to find one on their Canadian website. www.lenovo.com/ca/en/accessories-and-monitors/chargers-and-batteries/batteries/BATTERY-ThinkPad-Battery-44/p/0A36306 If they are still making them, they are definitely becoming premium quantities.
Yeah, I have this problem too. I own an X61t and unfortunately all my batteries are starting to either die or hold such a low charge that it's making it difficult to use the laptop. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check the battery depo out, hopefully they still have some replicas. Not giving up on my ThinkPad yet!
We're gonna need to disassemble those genuine batteries shells and swap the sell units manually. Make a clean cut though the plastic to expose the internals then proceed to the operation.
Thanks for this video and for your to-the-point style. Much appreciated as I'm shopping for one today - my X220's battery is at almost original capacity, but one of the latches broke so it's easy to accidentally power off the machine by nudging the laptop the wrong way when it's on a flat surface :( Cheers for the tips!
I actually found a brand new x220t battery in Summer 2016. Was even hard then. Was sitting in a warehouse with 4 others, but was 80 dollars. It is now dying on me. Went through a bunch of cycles and was even a Sanyo brand (was told Sanyo was crap). Lasted a long time but the past week or two its lasting 40 minutes and just quitting without warning.
Note there is also a seller on ebay who makes 9cell batteries for the x220t as well as for the x230t.. the Tablets are notorious for not having a 9-cell battery option from Lenovo, so these are really a special battery to have perfect fitment on my X220T. seller was "ok-batteries" on ebay. 7800 mAh confirmed, 72.58Wh. :)
@@LaptopRetrospective I'm not sure, but i believe they make them and sell them, I don't know what cells they use..how would i find that out? but mine has been holding up perfectly by keeping it below 80% when storing it for long periods. My x220T i bought in Jan 2019 came with a 6-cell that had normal battery capacity drain from use during its lifetime, so i bought that new 9-cell, it even had a manufacturing date only a few days prior to purchase and it's perfect as a replacement, it bulges out a bit further and fatter but is not bad at all. I LOVE IT.
@@LaptopRetrospective I found a 3rd party battery on Amazon from a company called Bull-Tech. 90 reviews and most were 4 and 5 stars. I did "sudo tlp-stat" and the battery showed 99% peak capacity. The battery charged when plugged into power. Not bad for $45.
Sept 30, 2024 here. Have an original X220 with original battery. i5 2520m. I want to upgrade the 4GB ram to 16GB, already using 500GB SSD. But the battery is done. Original, charges to 100% in W10 but only lasts 5-10 minute before cutting out. What is my best option to do? Or cheapest option? Not sure what to buy or do going forward. Still want to keep my little meat box laptop.
Hi, and thanks for a useful video. I have a 29++ 9 cell, and a 44+ 6 cell, original Lenovo batteries. I am having trouble finding new batteries to replace either of these at the right capacities. Lenovo in Australia has none left of their stock and everyone else makes batteries with less capacity. So, I am thinking of getting them refurbished with new cells and I do not mind the cost. I understand from your other video that the 29++ is older and less reliable than the 44++ series. My question is - will this matter in the case of having them refurbished with new cells? Would it be worth finding a cheap 44++ and refurbish that and throw away the 29++? Or is refurbishing the 29++ just as good as doing it with a 44++? I do not want to spend on refurbishing if the battery dies quickly because of another issue. Also, would be open to any suggestions on where I might still get a real Lenovo 9 cell 44++ Or even something like the doctor series - but batt depot says they do not ship to Australia. Thanks again.
You could also mention the Lenovo battery recall that if you are replacing an original x220 battery theres a good chance your old battery can simply be replaced for free by Lenovo
Battery manufacturers can easily lie about the battery stats shown in TLP? It's just the information the battery reports in sysfs (/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/*) which the companies manufacturing third party batteries (and therefore the BMSs) can easily change. Even without making the battery themselves, they can take a lenovo genuine battery, and use i2c to dump, modify, and reflash the eeprom on the BMSs to report false data.
If you actually want to test the battery's stats the best way I could think of is making something to measure the power input from the charger, then disconnecting the battery and measuring the power draw (p) for a particular controllable workload. Then with a fully charged battery, disconnect the charger and measure the amount of time (t) the battery lasts for running that workload. Then the usable energy the battery stores is p*t
Since your are the x220-GURU, heres a fun question: I recently startet to hear a whining or more of a buzzing sound coming from underneath, and when I listen to it very carefully it seems to come either from the Motherboard or the RAM...did you ever notice something similar to this? I mean these are quite old boards, but still. ... what gives?
Haha well I'm not sure about a guru but I'll do my best to help. I'm not sure what would cause a buzzing unless something on the board is on the fritz. RAM would be easy to diagnose by swapping modules.
@@LaptopRetrospective You are too modest, I actually tried other modules, again in dual channel mode, and its not them -> still buzzing, I even tried the BIOS Advanced Menu Setting to downlock to 1333 Mhz -> no success either... So it must be the MoBo, since other AC's did not do too much either... Well anyway just wanted to let u know...
@@LaptopRetrospective absolutely not, we are talkin about while its turned off. I highly suspect a faulty capacitor, since anything else just does not make much sense...as I said, these are old boards..I mean you can try it out for yourself. Plug your AC in and then listen carefully on the bottom and the plug it out, or the other way around..Depending on your configuartion the sound intensity may vary. Also I noticed that after some hours of use and then shutting it down, the whining gets even louder (which indicates to a faulty capacitor, as well) this is how I noticed it a couple of days ago the first time.... Anyway it would be interesting to know if others with an i5-2540M or similiar had the same issues...maybe worth another video for this x22o playlist of yours if you expecrience it too?
@@vonhohenzollern I suspect you're right, especially if the noise is happening when the device is off. My X220 hasn't done anything like that but if it does, I will look into it. I use mine on the daily so I'll know if and when it happens.
@@donaldlawrance same place when they made them. Now all UnixStickers sells is a bundle and not those cool ones. They had large stickers, pins t-shirts and other cool stuff.
Just swapped from a 37% cap 6-cell to a 87% cap 6-cell. Used batteryinfoview on Win10 to verify the 87% cap yesterday (The seller said 83% so I didn't get ripped off) However recently I think I "overcharged" this and now it suddenly drops to 75% cap. Is the capacity drop common? Is it possible to just change the cell in the battery case to make sure work of this problem?
Swapping cells in the battery case does involve you knowing what you are doing. Some cells can fluctuate a bit until they are fully drained and recharged or ran through calibration.
@@LaptopRetrospective Now that you mentioned draining, I actually did drain the battery last night from 100% to about 5%. So does that count as a calibration?
Yeah, that essentially would give you a fuller idea. If the battery sat for a while before the seller last charged it and gave it to you, there is the chance for some degradation.
I recenty ordered a battery on amazon from a company called DTK. It was advertised as working for a variety of X### models of Lenovo. The X220 was one of them, and I have an X220. However, when the battery arrived, it says X230 on the battery and it does fit the laptop. So I plugged it in and let it charge. But it will not power on unless it's plugged into the wall. And when it is plugged in, Windows gives me a notification saying that this battery is not compatible or something. I forget, that wasn't the right word. But my question is - can I in fact use this X230 battery with my X220, unplugged?
Something sounds odd. I currently use an X230 battery in my X220. In the early days, some X230 batteries that were made by third parties didn't have the authentic chip bypass and wouldn't work. But third party manufacturers have largely dealt with that. The X220 doesn't have a battery 'whitelist' however. I would just see if you can return it. To answer if it works unplugged, the only way to find out is to try.
hey I just bought an allegedly genuine Lenovo 9 cell 44++ battery for my X230. But I have a problem, there's a typo on the printing of the battery says "Use of another battery may present a fire or *expotion*". The word explosion is misspelled as "expotion" So it's a counterfeit, right? Why would Lenovo make such a stupid typo
Only way to know is to run a battery info command under Windows or Linux. If the capacity doesn't match the number on the plastic case you know it's a non genuine part.
@@datdang9113 Then the last thing would be to double check the capacity matches the specs printed on a known legitimate battery. I'm currently out or I'd check mine.
Hello sir, I own a Lenovo ThinkPad X220, I have a Ericsson 3g mobile card, sadly the 3g cuts out, so I have to reset the computer, then it works, and this repeats it self, should I update with the Windows optional update? I also have an Ericsson Modem optional update, should I update that too? any help would be appreciated, my knowledge of computers is very limited. Thank you for your time, and thank you for the useful videos! I really enjoyed the resent video on the TrackPoint history.
You can try the software updates first but there could be a fault with that card itself. There is a fair bit of hardware they can be the issue: card, antenna, sim card, sim card slot.
@@LaptopRetrospective thank you as always in replying to my comments. I will try the updates, then if problem persists, I will look at the other parts you have suggested. looking forward to future videos!
ok, I see two blogs or forums in english, but, where can I buy a big battery to my x230 that can run more than the 5 hours that runs my small 6cells battery? aliexpress... amazon.... I don't have much time to see and understand so much info (I'm spanish) so, just if you could tell me about a web or link were a 8h aprox. capacity battery for the x230...I would be really gracefull.
What I find irritating are eBay vendors who advertise their batteries as "genuine battery for Lenovo". These batteries come with the Lenovo logo on their case and look like the real thing but are counterfeit! They typically do not fit in the laptop case without forcing, have a different finish to them, and do not last as long as a real Lenovo battery. Once I noticed this I started paying attention to the adverts and noticed they listed the manufacturer as "generic", even though the picture of the battery had a Lenovo logo! I now check to see if the battery is indeed a genuine Lenovo battery, and not a genuine battery for Lenovo.
Good points on the wording to watch. Nothing beats a reputable seller you can trust. My hope is more people will call out incorrect battery capacities.
This can easily happen on any battery pack. Doesn't matter if its HP, Dell, Lenovo, or any other company. Its not that hard to take apart a laptop battery, unsolder the bad batteries, then solder in some new ones. When I found my HP Probook 6570b in a dumpster, it didn't have a battery on it, and I've noticed these fake genuine battery packs. I thought that I didn't have a battery, and was about to find one. But then, I went back to the dumpster, and found like 5 working HP genuine CC06 battery packs. I was about to buy one of these batteries, but the dumpster one worked and held a decent charge.
what would you choose ? a x220i tablet in great shape but bad battery (it cannot accept normal x220i batteries) or a x230i in acceptable shape and over 4hours of battery life ??
@@LaptopRetrospective ok that's kinda expensive. I could get a better laptop with good battery if added that to the budget. I took the x230i with a 9 cell battery that have over 4hours of battery which is usable at least. thanks for answering, I appreciate it.
Hard to say. From what I've seen, the price never changes if you are buying directly from Lenovo and they still have some old stock of machines they made in 2010. I'd wait because the warranty on the battery starts the date of purchase. That and they keep making batteries for quite a long time. The newest date I saw on X220 batteries has been 2017.
As time goes forward it gets harder to find good quality batteries. Originals are rare and usually worn or not 100% and aftermarket ones don't seem to last as long. Many choose to get them recelled by local shops.
@@datdang9113 pretty good deal. Like I said, the 9 cells are rare. Once they are below 50-60% though they are less useful than a new aftermarket 6 cell.
@@LaptopRetrospective I installed Mint Cinnamon on my e530 along with a $50 Inland SSD. Best idea ever. The e530 is now a secondary machine and should outlast Keith Richards.
@@LaptopRetrospective i have since optimized the battery to around 180wh, it's using Tesla 21700 cells, and the battery is a little bit more compact than the 18650 version
One of the biggest issues with running old Thinkpad is the sub standard batterys. Either OEM New old stock with degraded capacity or dodgy aftermarket chinese ones with buggy and cobbled together reverse engineered BMS. Coupled with cheap low capacity batteries. Someone needs to figure out techniques for re-celling old batterys without damaging the plastic or destroying the BMS with a current disconnect. Or find a chinese battery copy that doesn't have such protections and just use the BMS out of that. If that could be accomplished a 9 cell battery utilizing high capacity 18650 would achieve 30 Ah total capacity.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Windows 10 also has a build in command for checking the battery capacitiy. Just type "powercfg /batteryreport" in the command prompt and you get a very detailed overview over you battery's capacity history and runtime.
Going to pin this for others. Thanks for sharing.
Hmm need to do that on my x230
@@miskoma3882 might be interesting what you find.
Huh neat. I have about 61% capacity on the battery
@@miskoma3882 getting down a bit.
The TLP command in Arch Linux was recently changed to "tlp-stat".
Just bought a T430 and installed Manjaro KDE on it, after replacing the memory and SSD. It's looks brand new and with your tip of using tlp stat (tlp-stat) I discovered the battery capacity is still 91.5% which is great. Thanks for the video.
Cheers! Enjoy!
Thanks for this! Someone on the Reddit ThinkPad Community forum posted a question about buying batteries for their x220 earlier. I just shared the link to this video with them.
Thanks for sharing the video! I hope many people find it helpful.
It’s a pity modern laptops no longer come with easily removable battery.
In the pursuit of thin, much was lost.
if you wanna use the X220 for some more years, i recommend buying the original 9 cell battery with 94Wh. Stop charging them at 94% and restart charging at 90%. And they will last for more than 5 years. The problem is that the LG cells in those high capacity batteries (63Wh 6 cell / 94Wh 9 cell) really hate the charging at high voltage.
I have one of the 6 cells 63Wh in a x145 and it´s nearly dead after just 450 cycles and 2 years. Another identical 6 cell lasted for 1200 cycles and nearly 5 years with the charging limits i told. I´m now using the 9 cell 94Wh with the same LG cells in my X230 with the same charging limits. After 200 cycles it still has full capacity...
Finding original batteries is progressively difficult, especially at reasonable prices.
I bought the 9 cell 94 watt hour battery directly from Lenovo for the X220 for around $110 USD, and holy fuck, it's a beast.. That battery, plus the 16GB RAM upgrade I did, and the 240GB mSATA SSD and a 500GB caddy SSD have made this laptop so damn badass.. I still feel proud pulling it out in front of people with much more expensive laptops.. All up, my entire costs for the laptop and upgrades was $450 USD - The only thing I might do next as a final upgrade is replace the WiFi card to have AC speeds and Bluetooth 4.0, and an LCD upgrade if I can find something on the forums that people have recommended as being better than the stock screen..
Just reposting in case you missed it: This is required reading as far as I'm concerned for X220 owners x220.mcdonnelltech.com/resources/
I've done the WiFi card Bluetooth upgrade on this channel. Lots of information on screen swapping too.
@Pervy_Sage Not 100% sure about the 90Wh comment, but these are the available battery types:
4 cells 1950mAh 0A36281
6 cells 5600mAh 0A36282
9 cells 9000mAh 0A36283
6 cells 5800mAh 0A36280
The size of the battery isn't he only factor, you need to consider battery technology and power draw from the components to get to battery life.
I don't understand what you're saying.
@Pervy_Sage So you want a 9 cell and internal battery? Again, why are you fixated on the size of the battery only? If you want two batteries, then that limits you to the Battery Bridge systems like the x40-x70 era machines. If you just want a 70+Whr battery, you can go back as far as the x00 series, but the battery life will not be comparable at all.
So if the cost is the main factor and battery is the second, with no other factors being considered, then get the newest generation you can afford and be prepared to buy a new battery for it since most of them will come with a used battery.
I wasn't acutely aware 3rd party manufacturers found a way around the battery lock chip on the x230...I'll keep that in mind when I have to replace mine. Thanks.
The local refurbisher I know doesn't seem to have issues with the 3rd party ones he uses.
Same... my battery lasts 5 minutes and I didn't want to flash the bios or whatever becuase u could be arsed
@@LaptopRetrospective I was about to ask this question. So now you can just buy a third party battery and plug it in and use it no problem? I assumed a BIOS mod was still needed for the X230.
Nope, no BIOS mod for the x230. Unless you are using an older x220 on the x230. Hope that makes sense.
@@LaptopRetrospective Thanks for the reply. Do you mean if using an old x220 battery on the x230?
There's an updated description on Sebi's Random Tech video about the ThinkPad T430 that you might find interesting, not sure if it will apply to the x220 or x230:
"2019 EDIT: Starting with T430 BIOS version 2.82, EC version 1.14, Lenovo has started to include a digital signature that prevents this whitelist from being removed, the EC patch for T420 keyboards, and other aspects of this mod from working. DO NOT upgrade the BIOS to any version newer than 2.81.
Starting with the xx30 series of ThinkPads, Lenovo began blocking out third-party/aftermarket batteries from working properly in their laptops."
From the video: "ThinkPad T430: Getting rid of Lenovo's Battery Whitelist"
I've seen that third party batteries on ebay give a compatible parts list (I think for original batter codes) so i'll check that too.
Lenovo's Vantage software and the freeware HWInfo will also supply that battery information under Windows.
Correct!
Good timing. About time I bought a new battery for my x220t
Tablets have different style batteries do they not? Not sure if it is the same for them.
Yes, they are different, but there are also 3rd party replacements for them afaik
@@LaptopRetrospective Ya its def different, but they can be found or rebuilt. But finding the 9 cell is hard.
In July of 2018 I bought an X220 battery from (whom I assume is) the official Lenovo seller on Amazon for 60 USD ish. As of today my battery has 97 cycles, 78Wh left and claims to be manufactured by LG Chem on July 2017 (I am checking it on windows with Lenovo's power manager). I don't know if that's good, back, lucky or boasting but thought you'll find it interesting
Interesting, I'm guessing it has all the correct Lenovo markings on the case? There is no official Lenovo Store or seller in Canada at any rate. Lenovo's official US website shows all X220 batteries still in their online order system as out of stock. I did manage to find one on their Canadian website.
www.lenovo.com/ca/en/accessories-and-monitors/chargers-and-batteries/batteries/BATTERY-ThinkPad-Battery-44/p/0A36306
If they are still making them, they are definitely becoming premium quantities.
Yeah, I have this problem too. I own an X61t and unfortunately all my batteries are starting to either die or hold such a low charge that it's making it difficult to use the laptop. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check the battery depo out, hopefully they still have some replicas. Not giving up on my ThinkPad yet!
Let us know if you're successful.
We're gonna need to disassemble those genuine batteries shells and swap the sell units manually.
Make a clean cut though the plastic to expose the internals then proceed to the operation.
All retro ThinkPad owners I think eventually turn into battery builders.
A lot of Thinkpad batteries have become harder, and more expensive to find. My X131e/X140e, and X120e models for example are part of this as well.
Tis the battle of mortality we all will face eventually.
Thanks for this video and for your to-the-point style. Much appreciated as I'm shopping for one today - my X220's battery is at almost original capacity, but one of the latches broke so it's easy to accidentally power off the machine by nudging the laptop the wrong way when it's on a flat surface :( Cheers for the tips!
Glad to be of service!
I actually found a brand new x220t battery in Summer 2016. Was even hard then. Was sitting in a warehouse with 4 others, but was 80 dollars. It is now dying on me. Went through a bunch of cycles and was even a Sanyo brand (was told Sanyo was crap). Lasted a long time but the past week or two its lasting 40 minutes and just quitting without warning.
I think battery supply will be the end of these great machines.
@@LaptopRetrospective Unfortunately. :(
For anyone wondering BattdepotUS has x220t 63wh batteries
I believe i bought one from them, its amazing.
Awesome. Glad to hear it.
Note there is also a seller on ebay who makes 9cell batteries for the x220t as well as for the x230t.. the Tablets are notorious for not having a 9-cell battery option from Lenovo, so these are really a special battery to have perfect fitment on my X220T. seller was "ok-batteries" on ebay. 7800 mAh confirmed, 72.58Wh. :)
@@CubanLegend561 They make them or just sell them? Do you know what cells?
@@LaptopRetrospective I'm not sure, but i believe they make them and sell them, I don't know what cells they use..how would i find that out? but mine has been holding up perfectly by keeping it below 80% when storing it for long periods. My x220T i bought in Jan 2019 came with a 6-cell that had normal battery capacity drain from use during its lifetime, so i bought that new 9-cell, it even had a manufacturing date only a few days prior to purchase and it's perfect as a replacement, it bulges out a bit further and fatter but is not bad at all. I LOVE IT.
Thanks for the tips. I have a 7 year old e530 with its original battery. As you can imagine, it's pretty flat.
Haha I suspect so.
@@LaptopRetrospective I found a 3rd party battery on Amazon from a company called Bull-Tech.
90 reviews and most were 4 and 5 stars.
I did "sudo tlp-stat" and the battery showed 99% peak capacity. The battery charged when plugged into power.
Not bad for $45.
Sept 30, 2024 here. Have an original X220 with original battery. i5 2520m. I want to upgrade the 4GB ram to 16GB, already using 500GB SSD. But the battery is done. Original, charges to 100% in W10 but only lasts 5-10 minute before cutting out. What is my best option to do? Or cheapest option? Not sure what to buy or do going forward. Still want to keep my little meat box laptop.
You have essentially three options: buy an aftermarket battery, buy a genuine battery or have a local battery shop recell the one you have.
Hi, and thanks for a useful video. I have a 29++ 9 cell, and a 44+ 6 cell, original Lenovo batteries.
I am having trouble finding new batteries to replace either of these at the right capacities.
Lenovo in Australia has none left of their stock and everyone else makes batteries with less capacity.
So, I am thinking of getting them refurbished with new cells and I do not mind the cost.
I understand from your other video that the 29++ is older and less reliable than the 44++ series.
My question is - will this matter in the case of having them refurbished with new cells?
Would it be worth finding a cheap 44++ and refurbish that and throw away the 29++?
Or is refurbishing the 29++ just as good as doing it with a 44++?
I do not want to spend on refurbishing if the battery dies quickly because of another issue.
Also, would be open to any suggestions on where I might still get a real Lenovo 9 cell 44++
Or even something like the doctor series - but batt depot says they do not ship to Australia.
Thanks again.
A person that knows what they are doing should be able to recell the battery and it should be fine regardless of the original case.
Perfect timing! I desperately need a new x220 battery :P
Awesome. I hope it helps.
@@LaptopRetrospective Thanks for this looking at a new one myself
Most welcome. Good luck!
@@LaptopRetrospective i saw a duracell one any idea if there laptop batteries are any good
@@JamesWho1 that's a bit suspicious. Not sure they actually make replacement batteries. I'd take a good look at the seller.
You could also mention the Lenovo battery recall that if you are replacing an original x220 battery theres a good chance your old battery can simply be replaced for free by Lenovo
I actually mentioned it in my original video two years ago. 👍
@@LaptopRetrospective ah fair enough. Nice video anyway btw. The X220 is such a cracking little machine. I fear we may not see its like again
@@rossduncan6174 Thanks, it is indeed an awesome machine.
i tried that a few weeks back and unfortunately they said mine was not part of the recall
Yeah its increasingly rare to find a recall battery.
Battery manufacturers can easily lie about the battery stats shown in TLP? It's just the information the battery reports in sysfs (/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/*) which the companies manufacturing third party batteries (and therefore the BMSs) can easily change. Even without making the battery themselves, they can take a lenovo genuine battery, and use i2c to dump, modify, and reflash the eeprom on the BMSs to report false data.
If you actually want to test the battery's stats the best way I could think of is making something to measure the power input from the charger, then disconnecting the battery and measuring the power draw (p) for a particular controllable workload.
Then with a fully charged battery, disconnect the charger and measure the amount of time (t) the battery lasts for running that workload.
Then the usable energy the battery stores is p*t
Thanks for sharing. All the more reason to buy from a trusted source. 👍
Since your are the x220-GURU, heres a fun question: I recently startet to hear a whining or more of a buzzing sound coming from underneath, and when I listen to it very carefully it seems to come either from the Motherboard or the RAM...did you ever notice something similar to this? I mean these are quite old boards, but still. ... what gives?
Haha well I'm not sure about a guru but I'll do my best to help. I'm not sure what would cause a buzzing unless something on the board is on the fritz. RAM would be easy to diagnose by swapping modules.
@@LaptopRetrospective You are too modest, I actually tried other modules, again in dual channel mode, and its not them -> still buzzing, I even tried the BIOS Advanced Menu Setting to downlock to 1333 Mhz -> no success either... So it must be the MoBo, since other AC's did not do too much either... Well anyway just wanted to let u know...
Any chance it's coming from the fan?
@@LaptopRetrospective absolutely not, we are talkin about while its turned off. I highly suspect a faulty capacitor, since anything else just does not make much sense...as I said, these are old boards..I mean you can try it out for yourself. Plug your AC in and then listen carefully on the bottom and the plug it out, or the other way around..Depending on your configuartion the sound intensity may vary. Also I noticed that after some hours of use and then shutting it down, the whining gets even louder (which indicates to a faulty capacitor, as well) this is how I noticed it a couple of days ago the first time....
Anyway it would be interesting to know if others with an i5-2540M or similiar had the same issues...maybe worth another video for this x22o playlist of yours if you expecrience it too?
@@vonhohenzollern I suspect you're right, especially if the noise is happening when the device is off. My X220 hasn't done anything like that but if it does, I will look into it. I use mine on the daily so I'll know if and when it happens.
Where did you get the Linux mint sticker on your Lenovo ThinkPad X220?
Back when UnixStickers wasn't bought out by StickerMule. RedBubble and a few other places sell similar ones.
@@LaptopRetrospective How did you get the Linux mint logo on the keyboard of your ThinkPad X220?
@@donaldlawrance same place when they made them. Now all UnixStickers sells is a bundle and not those cool ones. They had large stickers, pins t-shirts and other cool stuff.
the 9 cells battery pack can last for 3-4 hours
If it's a fresh pack it should be able to do a little better.
Depends what you're doing, watching youtube drains them like crazy
True. I'm actually writing about this for my website.
5-6 hours . If you use it from 40 - 80% 2-3 hours.
Just swapped from a 37% cap 6-cell to a 87% cap 6-cell. Used batteryinfoview on Win10 to verify the 87% cap yesterday (The seller said 83% so I didn't get ripped off)
However recently I think I "overcharged" this and now it suddenly drops to 75% cap. Is the capacity drop common? Is it possible to just change the cell in the battery case to make sure work of this problem?
Swapping cells in the battery case does involve you knowing what you are doing. Some cells can fluctuate a bit until they are fully drained and recharged or ran through calibration.
@@LaptopRetrospective Now that you mentioned draining, I actually did drain the battery last night from 100% to about 5%. So does that count as a calibration?
Yeah, that essentially would give you a fuller idea. If the battery sat for a while before the seller last charged it and gave it to you, there is the chance for some degradation.
I recenty ordered a battery on amazon from a company called DTK. It was advertised as working for a variety of X### models of Lenovo. The X220 was one of them, and I have an X220. However, when the battery arrived, it says X230 on the battery and it does fit the laptop. So I plugged it in and let it charge. But it will not power on unless it's plugged into the wall. And when it is plugged in, Windows gives me a notification saying that this battery is not compatible or something. I forget, that wasn't the right word. But my question is - can I in fact use this X230 battery with my X220, unplugged?
Something sounds odd. I currently use an X230 battery in my X220. In the early days, some X230 batteries that were made by third parties didn't have the authentic chip bypass and wouldn't work. But third party manufacturers have largely dealt with that. The X220 doesn't have a battery 'whitelist' however. I would just see if you can return it. To answer if it works unplugged, the only way to find out is to try.
hey I just bought an allegedly genuine Lenovo 9 cell 44++ battery for my X230. But I have a problem, there's a typo on the printing of the battery says "Use of another battery may present a fire or *expotion*". The word explosion is misspelled as "expotion"
So it's a counterfeit, right? Why would Lenovo make such a stupid typo
Only way to know is to run a battery info command under Windows or Linux. If the capacity doesn't match the number on the plastic case you know it's a non genuine part.
@@LaptopRetrospective the capacity matches, the barcode number in Lenovo thinkvantage app matches the sticker on it too
@@datdang9113 Then the last thing would be to double check the capacity matches the specs printed on a known legitimate battery. I'm currently out or I'd check mine.
This should be genuine. I bought X220 right after it has been released, and on my oldest battery from May 2011 there's 'expotion' too.
Hello sir, I own a Lenovo ThinkPad X220, I have a Ericsson 3g mobile card, sadly the 3g cuts out, so I have to reset the computer, then it works, and this repeats it self, should I update with the Windows optional update? I also have an Ericsson Modem optional update, should I update that too?
any help would be appreciated, my knowledge of computers is very limited.
Thank you for your time, and thank you for the useful videos!
I really enjoyed the resent video on the TrackPoint history.
You can try the software updates first but there could be a fault with that card itself. There is a fair bit of hardware they can be the issue: card, antenna, sim card, sim card slot.
@@LaptopRetrospective thank you as always in replying to my comments.
I will try the updates, then if problem persists, I will look at the other parts you have suggested.
looking forward to future videos!
Cheers! Honoured to have your support.
Where did ya find the mint sticker ?
UnixStickers, back when they were cool and not owned by another company.
Are 9cell x220 tablet batterys compatable with non tablet x220?
No they are different.
ok, I see two blogs or forums in english, but, where can I buy a big battery to my x230 that can run more than the 5 hours that runs my small 6cells battery? aliexpress... amazon.... I don't have much time to see and understand so much info (I'm spanish) so, just if you could tell me about a web or link were a 8h aprox. capacity battery for the x230...I would be really gracefull.
What I find irritating are eBay vendors who advertise their batteries as "genuine battery for Lenovo". These batteries come with the Lenovo logo on their case and look like the real thing but are counterfeit! They typically do not fit in the laptop case without forcing, have a different finish to them, and do not last as long as a real Lenovo battery. Once I noticed this I started paying attention to the adverts and noticed they listed the manufacturer as "generic", even though the picture of the battery had a Lenovo logo! I now check to see if the battery is indeed a genuine Lenovo battery, and not a genuine battery for Lenovo.
Good points on the wording to watch. Nothing beats a reputable seller you can trust. My hope is more people will call out incorrect battery capacities.
This can easily happen on any battery pack. Doesn't matter if its HP, Dell, Lenovo, or any other company. Its not that hard to take apart a laptop battery, unsolder the bad batteries, then solder in some new ones.
When I found my HP Probook 6570b in a dumpster, it didn't have a battery on it, and I've noticed these fake genuine battery packs. I thought that I didn't have a battery, and was about to find one. But then, I went back to the dumpster, and found like 5 working HP genuine CC06 battery packs. I was about to buy one of these batteries, but the dumpster one worked and held a decent charge.
what would you choose ? a x220i tablet in great shape but bad battery (it cannot accept normal x220i batteries) or a x230i in acceptable shape and over 4hours of battery life ??
That will come down to personal preference. Do you want the tablet functionality or can you go without?
@@LaptopRetrospective its cool to be honest. can I find some good and reliable batteries for sub 20 dollars ? if yes where please
Batteries for $20? That's probably a stretch. Average price for a mid grade battery in Canada is $40-50 CDN.
@@LaptopRetrospective ok that's kinda expensive. I could get a better laptop with good battery if added that to the budget. I took the x230i with a 9 cell battery that have over 4hours of battery which is usable at least. thanks for answering, I appreciate it.
You're welcome!
👍thanks again
My pleasure!
I have a fairly new Thinkpad, would you advise me to buy multiple batteries and keep them around just in case they disappear?
Hard to say. From what I've seen, the price never changes if you are buying directly from Lenovo and they still have some old stock of machines they made in 2010. I'd wait because the warranty on the battery starts the date of purchase. That and they keep making batteries for quite a long time. The newest date I saw on X220 batteries has been 2017.
@@LaptopRetrospective what's the website of Lenovo, hopefully I am still lucky they still manufacture them...
What about 2024?
As time goes forward it gets harder to find good quality batteries. Originals are rare and usually worn or not 100% and aftermarket ones don't seem to last as long. Many choose to get them recelled by local shops.
Are regular X220/X230 batteries not compatible with the X220T?
No, they are different if I remember right.
I just ordered a 9 cell X230 battery (88% capacity left) for $26, do you think that's a decent price?
88% of genuine capacity or aftermarket? 😉
@@LaptopRetrospective genuine Lenovo battery 44++, how do you think?
@@datdang9113 pretty good deal. Like I said, the 9 cells are rare. Once they are below 50-60% though they are less useful than a new aftermarket 6 cell.
@@LaptopRetrospective thanks for the info, nice video as always
My pleasure, got something else coming I think you will like.
can you recommend third party battery brand for T580/480 that can buy from Aliexpress?
I've not personally purchased a battery from AliExpress.
@@LaptopRetrospective 👍
How did you get tp_smapi working on x220?
I installed the required packages.
@@LaptopRetrospective noob here, how do i instal smapi and acpi?
They were in the Linux Mint software center.
Can x201 laptop accepts x220 battery?
Not from what I've read.
Was your Lenovo ThinkPad X220 originally preloaded with Linux mint as an oem image?
Nope, I installed it myself. Took only minutes.
@@LaptopRetrospective I installed Mint Cinnamon on my e530 along with a $50 Inland SSD.
Best idea ever. The e530 is now a secondary machine and should outlast Keith Richards.
@@edalder2000 bold claim! But I hope it's true.
@@LaptopRetrospective It's classic ThickPad. Drop that machine-the e530 should be fine, but there will be a hole in the floor.
simple solution; open up the battery you already have and change the cells
Yep, rebuilds are an option if you have the knowledge to do it safely but is might not be the solution for everyone.
I wouldn't call that simple
Milliamp hours.
I need to unplug my battery from my Lenovo sitting in my closet! 😮
or just do what i did and DIY, my thinkpad T420s now has 212wh of awesomeness
(+30wh more for the ultrabay battery)
imgur.com/a/eZyZtna
Holy crap, talk about a Franken battery.
@@LaptopRetrospective but now I can get the 8hrs of advertised battery life (without just staring at the mouse pointer with the brightness at minimum)
@@LaptopRetrospective imgur.com/a/RAhLP9v full charge runtime numbers
@@LaptopRetrospective i have since optimized the battery to around 180wh, it's using Tesla 21700 cells, and the battery is a little bit more compact than the 18650 version
Thanks for the update! Do you have pictures of it?
One of the biggest issues with running old Thinkpad is the sub standard batterys. Either OEM New old stock with degraded capacity or dodgy aftermarket chinese ones with buggy and cobbled together reverse engineered BMS. Coupled with cheap low capacity batteries.
Someone needs to figure out techniques for re-celling old batterys without damaging the plastic or destroying the BMS with a current disconnect. Or find a chinese battery copy that doesn't have such protections and just use the BMS out of that. If that could be accomplished a 9 cell battery utilizing high capacity 18650 would achieve 30 Ah total capacity.
Yeah, the demand sadly drops as the years go on to the point where only enthusiasts are willing to do/pay for it.
at that point i'd rather buy a laptop power bank to charge on the go