I got an IBM thinkpad T20 and the battery's charge starts dying quickly after only several minutes of use. I've put a new battery in but it does the same with the new battery. Is there another componenet on the motherboard that could be causing this to happen? If so, is it an easy thing to replace?

it's bad battery. 100%.

if the battery is new you should return it and get a new and working one. if that fails you might have a problem with the power supply or the charger unit onboard. test the power supply with another one. if it is the charger unit you need a new mobo.

It wouldn't be the power supply, due to it's an AC Adapter power chord which works fine. The battery charges to 100% (at least that's what it shows). When I pull the AC adapter out, the battery life will start slowly decreasing 1% at a time for about 4 minutes. When it hits 95%, it all of the sudden decreases to 5%, which sets off the low battery warning. I guess I'll first try to get another battery, the one that I bought, I got if off of Ebay and stated it was a new battery, but who know. If that fails again, then I'm guessing mscrx is correct about the mobo. Thanks for the input.

ok, from what you describe in this post I'd say its the battery. my 1,5 years old dell d820 has almost the same problem since a couple of days. this battery loads faster than usual and I can use it to 80%. then it goes down to 5% and 2 mins later its over. I guess you should give the battery back and get a new one.

Ok, thanks mscrx.

got dell 620 @ garage sell...seller said hard drive was bad....need to remove owner tag

I don't see what this has in common with dying batteries!? please use the search function to find the right thread for your request.
btw the owner tag has nothing to do with accessing the system or the harddisk drive.
read throught the forum and you will find lots of information around this dell topic.

can somebody close this thread now?

cheers, mscrx