Slow Laptop Low Battery issue out of the blue

11fernsroad

Hi

My Lenovo Thinkpad T510 was working fine till otherday.It was fast and battery holds power for about 2 hours.Never had any issues with it.

Last 2 days there is battery flashing sign outside near charging port,it shows only 6% charge,and laptop itself has gone slow.Netflix videos is not running smoothly and even programmes loads up slow.

It took out battery and ran laptop on AC power only-still the same speed problem persists.

I ran a malware and antivirus to check-nothing came up.

No recent software downloads too.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Ebe_Scrooge

I'm not an expert, I'm sure others will be along with better suggestions.  But for the speed issue, one method is to do a factory reset.  Bit of a sledgehammer approach, but it often works.  Over time, the registry can get clogged up, and stuff that's removed isn't removed completely.  I'm still using an ancient desktop, and a couple of times over the years I've done this, what a difference it makes.

If you do decide to give this a go, be aware that you'll lose everything on the hard disc, so make sure you back up anything important first - photos, documents, internet bookmarks, whatever is important to you.  Plus, if you've bought software (games, MS Office, anything like that), make sure you've got the software keys or whatever to allow you to reinstall them.

As I say, it is very much a sledgehammer approach, but it can make a big difference if you've tried other things and are still having issues.

Aside from that, in general simply adding more memory is one of the easiest and cheapest ways of improving performance.  Not quite as simple on a laptop as on a desktop, but might be worth thinking about.  But the factory reset option costs nothing other than a couple of hours of your time to try - with, as I say, the caveat that you must understand that it'll go back to factory settings, so take the time to back stuff up first.

Neil_Jones

Charger issue.  Can't be battery, you've took it out.

You can check voltage thus (easier with a multimeter)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIZoc-a1Ajk

If your charger says it should be putting out 20v (or whatever) and its only putting out 9 or whatever, that'll be the cause of your problems.

jamesd

Try charging the battery with the computer turned off.Does it get to full charge?

Slowness might be due to battery low performance mode, since those can be set up to reduce speed at low charge. Part of the purpose of trying to get the battery to full charge is to see whether this affects the speed. But the problem persisting when the battery isn't present suggests that this is probably not the cause and the charger is more likely. New chargers cost around £21 or less. You might consider a more flexible one that can handle many models besides Thinkpads but that's not essential.

If you bought it new when the 510s first came out in 2010 a need for a new battery as well as any charger replacing wouldn't be surprising. At £26 or probably less from other places they aren't too expensive.

If charger doesn't solve it then the problem is most likely to be somewhere on the boards inside the computer and while it'll still be worth trying a new battery from a place like Amazon with easy return policy it might not be worthwhile ultimately. Nice thing about Amazon is you can buy charger and battery and return either or both or neither depending on what the tests show.

Many Thinkpad models include an option not to charge to 100% to prolong battery life. It won't cause your current problem but if a replacement battery is needed it'll help that one to last longer.

CoastingHatbox

Please ensure that the charging plug and socket are clean and free from oxidisation.

Before spending any money, it might be worth getting some contact cleaner and spraying it into the plug/socket - whilst the laptop is turned off/unplugged and charger disconnected from the mains.

I've seen laptops even high end Laptops (Dell XPS) become very slow as they fluctuate between high current/voltage and low current/voltage state due to a poor charger connection.