TR Forums

I have an old laptop, that's probably around 5+ years old now. And it runs on a Sony battery.

The thing is that battery is reported as completely empty in 5 or so minutes after unplugging, in both Windows, Linux and BIOS. But if I disable auto restart in Linux, the PC keeps running with screen at full brightness for 30+ minutes after the battery is reported with 0%/0.0Wh remaining. In Windows it's the same thing, just ignore the warnings and the PC keeps running and running.

Is there a way to fix the reporting so that the OSes would understand that the battery is not empty?

Be better to simply buy a fresh battery, not so?

Sometimes the BIOS will have a utility to re-calibrate the battery level. But as these batteries are meant to be replaced every ~3 years or so as their capacity diminishes, it might not help a whole lot.

bthylafh wrote:

Be better to simply buy a fresh battery, not so?

It's easier to buy new laptop than to change battery for 5 year old laptop. New battery probably costs around 200$, new laptop costs around 300$, and will have better specs than half a decade old entry level ThinkPad. I just want to get most out of it. And give it away as a working platform.

Further reports:
The battery ran 12 minutes while reporting charge.
But it's running for 1:30 and still counting after dropping to 0%. It's a 5 year old battery...