Arch Linux

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

gnome-power-manager sees two batteries

Since the last Gnome update it's seemed to me that battery life is shorter than it should be, and now I think I have an inkling why. When I left-click on the power applet, I see two batteries instead of one; the first is the one for which the discharge time is given, and has less than half as much charge as the second.

What's the deal here? Is my battery losing capacity?

(Also - does anyone make "oversized" laptop batteries, with more cells linked in parallel to last longer? It would be nice to add a few more hours for the price of a few extra pounds.)

billy

Member

From: Slovenia

Registered: 2006-09-13

Posts: 164

Re: gnome-power-manager sees two batteries

I had the same problem with gnome-power-manager showing two bateries (first one showing 49/86Wh and second one 4.4/4.4Wh or something like that). But this week I installed Arch64 and there is only one battery . I don't know if this is because I run x86_64 instead of i686 OS or because of some difference in PKGBUILDS (versions of the packages are the same) or reinstall or something else.

Well sadly 64-bit didn't help increasing my battery life, I only "lost" one .

Reasons

Member

From: Washington

Registered: 2007-11-04

Posts: 572

Re: gnome-power-manager sees two batteries

I have x86_86 and like billy I had the problem but when hal got upgraded it was fixed.

signor_rossi

Member

Registered: 2007-08-24

Posts: 257

Re: gnome-power-manager sees two batteries

I have x86_86 and like billy I had the problem but when hal got upgraded it was fixed.

Strange, my system should be up to date too but I still have 4 batteries while I actually have only two. Did I miss something? There don't seem to be any .pacnew files regarding HAL (checked with pacdiffviewer).
HAL version is hal-0.5.10-1-i686.
Bye, signor_rossi.

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: gnome-power-manager sees two batteries

Whatever, the battery life situation has turned ugly... My battery, formerly good for 3 hours, is now only good for an hour and a half. Any advice?

signor_rossi

Member

Registered: 2007-08-24

Posts: 257

Re: gnome-power-manager sees two batteries

Whatever, the battery life situation has turned ugly... My battery, formerly good for 3 hours, is now only good for an hour and a half. Any advice?

Powertop may help you find the culprit.

Bye, signor_Rossi.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: gnome-power-manager sees two batteries

Where's the 3hr statistic from? Is that actual or the GNOME power estimate?

If it's the estimate, then it's probably wrong. I've seen some pretty impressive estimates. My brothers gets 500 hours. I get 2 hours that tends to dissappear in 20 minutes.

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: gnome-power-manager sees two batteries

That's the estimated battery lifetime for the laptop when running WinVista. In the past it's been about the same for Linux with all the laptop utils.

signor_rossi

Member

Registered: 2007-08-24

Posts: 257

Re: gnome-power-manager sees two batteries

I have x86_86 and like billy I had the problem but when hal got upgraded it was fixed.

Strange, my system should be up to date too but I still have 4 batteries while I actually have only two. Did I miss something? There don't seem to be any .pacnew files regarding HAL (checked with pacdiffviewer).
HAL version is hal-0.5.10-1-i686.
Bye, signor_rossi.

Fixed with HAL update from yesterday, batteries are 2 again.
Version is hal-0.5.11rc2-2.

Bye, signor_rossi.

Tido

Member

Registered: 2007-06-21

Posts: 65

Re: gnome-power-manager sees two batteries

upgrading to hal-0.5.11rc2-2 also fixed this for me (with Kpowersave).