Battery charge state

[Trio3b]

Dell inspiron N5010 running MGA3 KDE installed from live DVD. Prior install was MGA2 and I did NOT wipe /home. This is a test lappy so no important info.

Battery inserted - charge state shows 100% with AC charger. As soon as charger unplugged charge state shows 83%. Pretty sure this battery is good and I did have MGA2 installed on this laptop and don't recall this issue.

Also after installing MGA3 AND updates, notification came up indicating acpid and acpi needed to be installed but they are installed according to package manager.

Is it possible some settings were left over from the previous install causing this? Just want to check before I rename .kde --> .kde.old

Thanks

[doktor5000]

Check with a newly created user to be sure ...

[zugunder]

Maybe xguest will be the best option.

[Trio3b]

new user - same problem...hmmm

[UPDATE] possible that battery has dirty terminals. removed and reinserted and so far so good will post back and marked solved in several days.

[Trio3b]

Unfortunately it appears this is either a regression in KDE power for MGA3 or a configuration issue leftover from the prior MGA2 installation where I did not wipe the /home partition although creating a new user did not solve it.

[UPDATE] Re-installed MGA2 and batt charge state still wonky. acpi -V shows:
Battery 0: Charging, 72%, 00:26:11 until charged
Battery 0: design capacity 4656 mAh, last full capacity 4032 mAh = 86%
Adapter 0: on-line
Thermal 0: ok, 36.5 degrees C
Thermal 0: trip point 0 switches to mode critical at temperature 105.0 degrees C
Cooling 0: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 1: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 2: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 3:. Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 4: LCD 2 of 15

...which corresponds with the 86% shown when adapter is pulled out with batt on full charge It does not immediately change but takes about 30-45 seconds then changes fromm 100% to 86%. Another clue may be that acpi -V shows 10% more than kde applet so whereas acpi shows 72% currently, kde applet shows 64%.

It is possible that this is a hdwr issue but why would acpi and kde applet disagree?
Any ideas appreciated.

[sylvanillo]

I have the same question. As described on other posts, I installed Mageia 3 on my Sony laptop.
On Mandriva 2010 and all previous distribs since Mandrake 10, I had a battery indicator in KDE. In Mageia 3, it has disapeared.

I tried the above suggestion but clicking on the "triangle" itself doesn't do anything.

The alternative to show the battery state is to install PtBatterySystemTray, but honestly does it make sens to start an app to see the battery status.....

Any other suggestion?

[doktor5000]

Either click on the "cashew" on the right edge of the control panel -> add plasmoid -> battery monitor or right click the triangle -> system tray settings -> additional elements -> battery monitor to add the battery monitor. On a default KDE install when installing on a laptop which has battery inserted during installation this will be there by default.

[sylvanillo]

Dear Doctor,

You're great. Quickest response in the world. Thanks a lot!

[doktor5000]

...which corresponds with the 86% shown when adapter is pulled out with batt on full charge It does not immediately change but takes about 30-45 seconds then changes fromm 100% to 86%. Another clue may be that acpi -V shows 10% more than kde applet so whereas acpi shows 72% currently, kde applet shows 64%.

Check what upower thinks about the battery state and compare that to acpi -bi output.

Code: Select all

[doktor5000@Mageia3 ~]$ solid-hardware query 'IS Battery'
udi = '/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT1'
[doktor5000@Mageia3 ~]$ solid-hardware details /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT1
udi = '/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT1'
  parent = '/org/freedesktop/UPower'  (string)
  vendor = 'PANASONIC'  (string)
  product = 'AS07B51'  (string)
  description = 'Lithium Ion Battery'  (string)
  Battery.plugged = true  (bool)
  Battery.type = 'PrimaryBattery'  (0x3)  (enum)
  Battery.chargePercent = 100  (0x64)  (int)
  Battery.rechargeable = true  (bool)
  Battery.chargeState = 'NoCharge'  (0x0)  (enum)

[doktor5000@Mageia3 ~]$ acpi -bi
Battery 0: Full, 100%
Battery 0: design capacity 4500 mAh, last full capacity 4081 mAh = 90%

[Trio3b]

acpi shows 10% more than upower and kde applet which agree.

e.g. upower and kde applet shows 80%
acpi shows 90%

Thoughts?

[doktor5000]

upower and kde applet which agree.

e.g. upower and kde applet shows 80%

KDE applet only shows the data from upower, so they will certainly always agree

If there's no battery calibration possible with your laptop, you could only try with another battery.
Or just don't care that much about the charge state, depending how old that box is.