Battery monitor wrong, any ideas?

Discussion in 'Laptop Hardware' started by speekergeek, Feb 10, 2009.

  1. speekergeek

    speekergeek

    Joined:
    Jul 17, 2008
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    0
    I got my 6 cell battery a month ago, and when I first got it, the monitor would show 5+ hours left on the battery at about 9500mah usage.

    now, fully charged, it shows 3 hours remaining on the battery status in kpowersave. Same as my 3 cell normally does.

    I let it go down to ZERO percent remaining, and it ran for two more hours before I shut it off to get some sleep.

    The battery indicator by the power plug blinked red while it was in this "low power" state.

    The battery does not seem to be defective (unless it thinks that itis a 3 cell, which is possible, I did do some swapping to compare battery life while the computer was on and plugged in)

    when I shut the computer down in the "low power" state, the red light continued to blink and the computer would not boot without the power plug in.

    I changed the bios from 3308 to 3309 and no change.

    I went back to 3114 (and enjoying the extra low screen brightness settings BTW) and no change.

    I recharged the battery and it still shows about 3 hours on a 6 cell!!!! grrrrr

    But it still has 5 hours of juice...

    sounds like either the battery is reporting the wrong info, or the bios is reading it wrong...

    any insight into this?

    Do the batteries have a type of bios or chip that could have been overwritten by swapping the 3 cell while power was on?

    Any ideas on how to fix it?

    I now disable auto functions on kpowersave and don't use it at all as it reports false info.

    Please help :cry:

    Mike
     
    speekergeek, Feb 10, 2009
    #1
  2. speekergeek

    speekergeek

    Joined:
    Jul 17, 2008
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    0
    OK here is some new info:
    [user@localhost ~]$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info
    present: yes
    design capacity: 4400 mAh
    last full capacity: 2954 mAh
    battery technology: rechargeable
    design voltage: 11100 mV
    design capacity warning: 300 mAh
    design capacity low: 118 mAh
    capacity granularity 1: 32 mAh
    capacity granularity 2: 32 mAh
    model number: UM08B74
    serial number: 013A
    battery type: LION
    OEM info: SIMPLO

    So apparently my new(ish) 6 cell thinks it is a 3 cell OEM battery.

    Now that my suspicions were confirmed... how to fix??

    this officially sux donkey nuts.... I may just do away with kpower save, or ANY battery monitoring device. It only really serves as a distraction during school, being that I am overly concerned with how long I can make the battery last. :(
     
    speekergeek, Feb 11, 2009
    #2
Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments (here). After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.