[stuartguerin]

Hi

I have an IBM thinkpad R40 which works great but the battery it came with would not charge. I thought it was an old battery so I bought a new one but this doesn't charge either. I find if I shake the machine a bit and leave it it sometimes charges the battery. Is there something I can open up and tighten as it is clearly a connection issue?

Any advice would be very much appreciated, it's driving me crazy!

Thanks
Stu

 

[TheMatt]

Hi Stu,

Try cleaning the contacts on the laptop where the contacts on the battery would touch.

 

[stuartguerin]

Thanks for your reply.

Yeah, it was the first thing I tried and to no avail.

Its strange that it will charge sometimes if I knock the machine about a bit like the thug that I am. Getting quite annoyed by the whole thing, it came with a 30 day warranty which has now elapsed (as I thought it had just come with a dead battery) but now a brand new battery won't charge too.

Does anyone know much about the inside of an R40? Is it worth me taking it apart and tightening anything? As you can tell I am quite up for this idea...

PLEASE HELP!!!

 

[laboye]

Hi and welcome to TSF. Here is a generic set of disassembly instructions that uses the R40 as the example:

http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=102215&seqNum=3&rl=1

When the computer is plugged in and running with the battery installed, does the system report that there is a battery in? Do you have the ThinkPad Utilities installed? If so, you can check detailed information specific to the battery and see if it is a bad battery. If not, you can use BatMon to determine other info, though it is not as thorough as the ThinkPad Utilities:

Batmon:
http://www.passmark.com/ftp/batmon.exe

The thinkpad utilities are model specific, so you'll need to provide your type-model code. It is located on the bottom of your ThinkPad on a small black and white sticker above a barcode.

-Eddie

 

[stuartguerin]

Thanks for your response Eddie.

There has been a development. I have discovered that when I slowly insert the power cable it starts charging the battery for about 30 seconds (the 'charging' icon appears next to the clock in windows). It then stops. I guess either the cable or the socket is the issue.

Does anyone have any further advice? I have looked into buying a new cable but this may cost up to £45 as I cannot find one which is not part of a charger pack.

Thanks again to all who offer their help, I really appreciate it.

Stu