
Unlocking my Lenovo laptop battery - deadgrey19
http://www.zmatt.net/unlocking-my-lenovo-laptop-part-1/
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th0br0
I remember running into a similar issue with my W520. The WiFi card had died
and, given that this is a simple mPCIe card, I simply ordered a replacement.
Turns out, Lenovo hard-codes the valid PCI IDs in the BIOS (some sources said
it was for FCC compliance) and refuses to boot if you plug in an invalid card.
In the end, I had to flash the BIOS with a cracked one I found somewhere on
the web to get the system running again...

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monksy
MSI did that. I tried to sub out a RealTek card with a good athenos. That was
a bit frustrating and turned me off from buying from MSI.

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digi_owl
MSI in general seems to be all pain. Back during the netbook craze their take
shipped a Suse install with missing drivers.

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pingec
Cached version
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:J4bxSli...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:J4bxSliXq8oJ:www.zmatt.net/unlocking-
my-lenovo-laptop-part-1)

~~~
post_break
Why are there viagra urls at the bottom?

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codemac
This used to happen to me when I would run poorly secured sites for personal
stuff. Super annoying, taught me to take even personal stuff more seriously.

They'll hack in and then just add affiliate / ad links hidden everywhere from
view so they can try to raise the google ranking of some other site (like one
that sells viagra). Google has done much better recently fighting this type of
reputation spam.

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eli
Devil's Advocate: non-genuine batteries have been linked to devices catching
fire

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johnhattan
Reminds me of buying a new battery for my Macbook a few months ago.

Me : I need a new battery for my Macbook.

Apple : Okay, but be sure to get a battery directly from Apple. Third-party
batteries are no good!

Me : Fine, I wanna order an A1280 battery.

Apple : Oh, we don't sell those anymore. You'll have to get one somewhere
else.﻿

~~~
AlphaGeekZulu
Oh, yes, I had some funny experiences like this as well. Wanted to have the
battery of my 17" MacBook (5.5 years old) replaced, as it started to inflate.
(I have to admit, the battery had performed much better and longer than I had
expected!) Made an appointment with the AppleStore; was told, that there are
no replacement batteries for any MacBooks older than 5 years. As Apple doesn't
officially recommend third-party batteries, this means in consequence, that
you would be obliged to throw away the machine.

I told one of my customers, who has a lot of MacBooks in his company, about
this. So he started to bring all MacBooks older than 4.5 years to Apple to get
the batteries replaced. And every single time Apple made some suspicous
battery-quality-tests and declared that the batteries were still good and
didn't need to get replaced. (The batteries generally had a runtime of less
than 30 minutes after 4.5 years).

"No, battery needs no replacement.", the Genius would reply. "I do not ask for
a free replacement, you know, I am aware I have to pay 140,- Euro for it. The
battery runs only for 20 minutes, I do not think it is good." "Yeah, maybe you
have to calibrate it. But the test says, the battery is good." "So, in 6
months I will get no new battery, as the model is legacy?" "Ah, yes, this is
true." "So, would you please replace the battery, for 140,- Euro, please,
please?" "OK".

This dialog repeated for every single MacBook.

I switched to ThinkPad/Linux shortly after. Battery-wise doesn't seem to be
much of a difference ;-)

~~~
johnhattan
Following that new "Error 53" debacle, it does seem that Apple's policy
regarding repairs is "If it breaks after a year, throw it away".

I think my Macbook was the last model that even had an easily replaceable
battery. I think they glue 'em in now.

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irremediable
Awesome post(s). Looking forward to part three.

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coldpie
Yeah, regardless of whether this is a good idea or not, it's an absolutely
fascinating read. I love this kind of low-level reverse engineering.

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irremediable
It's a striking reminder that, although the systems we use day-to-day may be
intimidatingly complex, they _are_ hackable. Moreover, even someone with a
comparatively basic understanding of reverse engineering (e.g. me) can see how
it works. Very exciting.

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michaelmrose
Another reason to never buy Lenovo. Meanwhile Dell recycles bad parts and
Apple glues batteries in is there an oem worth buying?

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takeda
Panasonic? But their laptops are expensive.

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digi_owl
More and more i get the feel that humanity need to relearn to pay for quality.

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ploxiln
It seems like economies of scale have steamrolled quality. If one company can
sell 1000x the volume to people who don't know better, then even those who do
know better will often find the high-volume choice more practical due to cost
and industry support just being too good to ignore.

~~~
digi_owl
Yeah i find myself reminded of an anecdote about a young lady that wanted to
treat herself after landing her first job out of college.

So she went to market somewhere in Asia, fund a stall selling handbags, and
started to haggling by pointing out the various ways the bags where fake.

Eventually she settled on a bag. She knew it was fake, she knew it would not
last as long as the real thing, but she hoped it would at least hold until she
climbed the corporate ladder enough that she could replace it with the real
thing.

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lini
It's interesting how a non-genuine battery for this laptop is even sold. If
the laptop refuses to charge it out of the box then nobody will buy it, since
it does not work. Why sell it if everyone will just try it and return it
immediately?

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fencepost
Physically the same model batteries have been used on several generations of
the ThinkPads. The actual change was from the 55+/55++ battery generation to
the 70+/70++ battery generation with the 2012 laptops.

Per a Lenovo staff member in their forums [1], "The machine will boot (with a
warning message displayed by BIOS and by Power Manager), and it will even
discharge the unauthenticated battery. The issue is that the machine will not
charge the unauthenticated battery. With many of the new systems supporting
RapidCharge where you can get to 80% charge in 30 minutes, it is just too
dangerous to try to charge someone's aftermarket ebay battery."

[1] [https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-P-and-W-Series-
Mobile/...](https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-P-and-W-Series-
Mobile/27-Slice-vs-28-Slice-Differences/td-p/788873#)

~~~
eli
Seems like they could just disable RapidCharge on unauthenticated batteries
but perhaps that's asking too much.

~~~
digi_owl
Why do that when you can just sell a whole new laptop?

The whole pile of turtles is about shipping new units...

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edward
Part 3: [http://www.zmatt.net/unlocking-my-lenovo-laptop-
part-3/](http://www.zmatt.net/unlocking-my-lenovo-laptop-part-3/)

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gravypod
Is it legal for a company to do something like this? I could understand a
message on boot-up saying "This is not a Lenovo certified battery and we are
not responsible for damages caused by it."

I don't know, any one here familiar with the laws pertaining to this?

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ufmace
I'm not sure, but I doubt that there are laws against not charging
unauthorized batteries. I am fairly sure that they could be held liable for
any damages caused by fires, etc caused by trying to charge a poorly-made
battery, and that you cannot release that liability with any kind of boot-up
message or contract.

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alinspired
Very interesting! Slicing through the layers of firmware like I've never seen
before

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rwmj
TIL: Tiny USB logic analyzers are a thing. It seems the company mentioned in
this post (CWAV USBee) has gone out of business. Are there other good quality
USB logic analyzers?

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jburgess777
The hardware is based on a Cypress FX2 chip and there are lots of cheap clones
which can be bought from Chinese sellers for £10. See
[http://sigrok.org/wiki/Fx2lafw](http://sigrok.org/wiki/Fx2lafw)

~~~
rwmj
Exactly what I needed to know, and answers my question about Linux too.
Thanks.

