New iFixit battery for ThinkPad Yoga 14 is "non-genuine", won't charge

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Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 14 20FY

The Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 14 is a convertible 14-inch Ultrabook developed by Lenovo in 2015. It is one of many iterations in the ThinkPad line.

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Mike @goodmami

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Postado: 1 de dez de 2023

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New iFixit battery for ThinkPad Yoga 14 is "non-genuine", won't charge

I bought the compatible ThinkPad Yoga battery from iFixit's store and followed the guide, but on rebooting I get the following message:

This system does not support batteries that are not genuine Lenovo-made or authorized. The system will continue to boot, but may not charge unauthorized batteries.

ATTENTION: Lenovo has no responsibility for the performance or safety of unauthorized batteries, and provides no warranties for failures or damage arising out of their use.

Press the ESC key to continue.

I've replaced Lenovo ThinkPad batteries on earlier models without issue, and RAM on this particular device, so I didn't expect it to reject a new battery. A web search shows that I'm not alone in my surprise; apparently it's a "feature" of more recent BIOS firmware. Neither the iFixit store product page nor the guide mentioned this issue, let alone how to fix it.

Does anyone know the best course of action here?

Produto

LenovoThinkPad Yoga P40/460 Laptop Battery

$59.99

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oldturkey03 @oldturkey03 Rep: 782,4 mil 1,1 mil 893 2,3 mil · Answer 1 · 2023-12-01T18:33:16-07:00

oldturkey03 @oldturkey03

Rep: 782,4 mil

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Postado: 1 de dez de 2023

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@goodmami there really is not a whole lot you can do, is there? The very first thing I would do is to contact iFixit at support@ifixit.com and see what the awesome staff can tell you. The only other thing is to get an OEM battery. It had to happen. Parts Serialization has become the new hostile game played by the manufacturers. The "you either buy my stuff or I block your (whatever function)" insanity has to stop. Apple. Samsung, HP Lenovo.....all the same. They all play it.

I am convinced it is an IC on the Battery Control board or the flex that carries that is the blackmailing offender. Anyhow, lets see what you can find out and what you decide on doing.

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Probably similar to the custom chip Dell uses with the BIOS challenge response :/.

1 de dez de 2023 por Nick

Thanks, I'll contact support. I saw some instructions on Reddit, forum.thinkpads.com, or similar, for bypassing the check, but I wanted to check here before trying them. Totally agree with you about the parts serialization thing. Even my fridge's water filter checks for some RFID from "genuine" replacements.

1 de dez de 2023 por Mike

@goodmami if you are as sick of feeding the Profit-before-People (Planet) machinery as we are, make sure you support https://www.repair.org/stand-up/ in any way you can.

Repair is War on Entropy!

1 de dez de 2023 por oldturkey03

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Nick @nick Rep: 88,8 mil 195 260 144 · Answer 2 · 2023-12-02T02:14:07-07:00

Lenovo took this idea from Dell; Dell has a custom chip on the OEM batteries that is unique to them; even TI cannot sell it to anyone to Dell or provide schematics due to contractual issues. I'm not 100% sure if Lenovo does this, but these vendors use a challenge-response with copyrighted code that if cloned to a 3rd party pack the seller can get legally screwed. So yeah, they started doing this with the XX30 series and only beefed it up since. Sometimes these packs use an off-the-shelf part and all you need to do is dump the challenge code and OEM strings but that's not always the case; it's trial and error which off-the-shelf chips work with this challenge-response code if the chip is custom like Dell. If it's off the shelf it's just a matter of reverse engineering an OEM pack, ripping the code from the OEM battery, and then cloning it to trick the laptop.

Other than finding a cloned battery from a site like eBay or Amazon where the sellers can better hide, you need to buy OEM for Lenovo and Dell to guarantee this nonsense doesn't happen.

Mike @goodmami Rep: 13 3 · Answer 3 · 2023-12-23T18:47:26-07:00

I was able to overcome the error message and now I am able to use the battery as normal (charging, viewing charge percentage) by disconnecting and reconnecting the CMOS battery.

Prior to this, I tried flashing the BIOS to a newer firmware, but that did nothing (though some have reported success flashing to an older BIOS firmware, supposedly prior to the "authenticity" checks). In order to flash the BIOS, I needed to disable some BIOS-level security settings, like Intel SGX and Secure Boot. I mention these because, while they did not solve the problem on their own, they may have contributed to the solution.

After opening the laptop up again, I disconnected the CMOS battery, disconnected the main battery, pressed the emergency reset button (BTN1 next to the CMOS battery connection point) for 5 seconds (just in case...), then reconnected the main and CMOS batteries. After this, the error message disappeared and all was well.

Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 14 20FY

New iFixit battery for ThinkPad Yoga 14 is "non-genuine", won't charge

LenovoThinkPad Yoga P40/460 Laptop Battery

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