Re: TP750 Battery

[Don Whiteside <dwhite@shadow.net>]

On Mon, 29 Jul 1996, Bob Rooks           x7257 wrote:

> have a battery problem.....First the battery is 
> switched to the 1 postion, I have a orange 
> battery status light but only see the charge 
> green light for a moment when plugging in the 
> PS..after 36 hours still only the orange 
> indication, the unit seems to be good for only a 
> minutes on battery then I get the beeping 
> warnings(and flashing ornange)...does this sound like a bad battery or 
> a 750 charging problem, should I not see the 
> green charge indicator all the time???

This is consistent with the problem I have had with my TP750 and 
batteries that are 2yrs old (1 yr use each). The 750 (dunno about the 
other models) would power cycle the batteries in the top 10% over and over 
again if you used it with the AC adaptor and the batt in by letting the 
battery wear down to the 90% mark and then charging it again. 
Unsuprisingly, it destroys the battery.

I bought a quick charger/conditioner with the hope that it could deal 
with this problem, but they appear to be toast. Some people have reported 
success in getting IBM to replace them since it's a fault in the charging 
mechanism, not the batt.

There are third party battery sources that you can buy a 750 batt for 
about, oh, $120 or so. The only oneline one I know off the top of my head 
is www.warrior.com. They don't seem to have prices online, though.

Oh, by the way - I see they have 2.1G slimheight drives apparently with 
caddy for $950.