x230 boots with battery, but isn't detected and won't charge

[koolhaas]

I bought a "genuine" new 9 cell lenovo battery off a US [edit: US warehouse, but HK business] ebay seller. The problem is the battery won't charge and isn't detected by windows (or Ubuntu). The situation:

- x230 boots with the battery, with no authenticity errors
- battery not detected by windows or ubuntu
- the battery came with some charge and the laptop worked off the charger (and raised the CPU multiplier from 12x when there was no battery)
- when turned on with a/c connected, battery light blinks 3 times green
- I have an old bios version (2.5)
- battery seems to have discharged now, and CPU multiplier is locked at 12x again

I'm not sure how to troubleshoot further, this is my first thinkpad. Could it be a charging circuit issue? How can I check that?

[RealBlackStuff]

It may be genuine, but is it an official X230 battery, one of these?
45N1019 1 SANYO 4cell
45N1025 1 LGC 6cell - Primary
45N1029 1 LGC 9cell -Primary
45N1031 1 SANYO 6cell-3yrs
45N1035 1 Sony slice 6cell
45N1172 1 Panasonic 6cell - Secondary
45N1175 1 Panasonic 9cell - Secondary
45N1709 1 Panasonic 4c/2.0
45N1710 1 Panasonic 6c/2.9
Other batteries are not recognised until you apply the battery EC-mod, see here: viewtopic.php?f=69&t=120776

[koolhaas]

Thanks for the info. My battery's FRU (45N1027) is not on your list

Annoyingly it is branded Lenovo.

And I haven't been able to get the EC mod working. I boot the USB thumb, continue with the flash, and it says successful BIOS update. But after the reboot nothing has changed with the bios or EC version...

[koolhaas]

Oddly enough, I just found my battery FRU listed on Lenovos site, as a possible replacement P/N for the 44++ model:

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd024293

[RealBlackStuff]

The EC-mod does not 'show' any BIOS-changes.
It either works or it doesn't.
Check if knock-off battery here: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=126079

[koolhaas]

The EC-mod does not 'show' any BIOS-changes.
It either works or it doesn't.

Yes good point.

I ended up getting a refund on the battery. Must have been a dud. I bought the 4-cell Duracell DR3416A-US, and it works, even before EC mod. I was then able to finish flashing the EC mod. Apparently, you can flash the BIOS w/o a battery (using windows CLI tool), but the .FL2 EC flash process just silently fails.

Anyways, happy that I now have a working battery and modded EC