Charge not going higher than 83%

**Vignesh S** · August 19th, 2009

I recently bought a battery for my IBM Thinkpad R31. For some reason, even though the battery icon goes from orange to green when it is fully charged, the charge icon in the tray won't go any higher than 83%. This is a new battery, and it does hold charge after the plug is released, so it can't be a depleted battery.

I'm thinking that this is a calibration error with the app, and not with the battery, for it says at 62%, there is 55 minutes left, yet it was 1 hour 15 mins around 10 minutes ago.

Is there any way to fix this problem up?

**trundlenut** · August 19th, 2009

I think you may need to fully discharge the battery then charge it up again to recalibrate it.

**sergiom99** · August 20th, 2009

Check this one: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1242973

**Vignesh S** · August 22nd, 2009

OK, I discharged and charged the battery quite a few times, and it now shows all of the remaining time. However, there is now another problem relating to the battery meter. Instead of the percentage being consistent with the time remaining, it is not calibrated properly and the two simply do not correlate. e.g. Drops from 98% to 90% and it has only been a drop of 5 minutes in battery discharge time. And when it gets to 2%, there is still a good 20 minutes left in the battery. I really need the percentage and the discharge times to correlate.

**sonicj** · August 22nd, 2009

Originally Posted by trundlenut

I think you may need to fully discharge the battery then charge it up again to recalibrate it.

The common misconception is that applies to all batterys, but it doesn't. Check the specific type you have to see if that holds true. If not, discharning could be more harmful.

**Vignesh S** · September 10th, 2009

Sure, I can now use my laptop for up to 2 hours. Problem is, the battery meter just doesn't like it. It was bad on 9.04, and now, its even worse in 9.10. I have absolutely no idea what to do.

HELP