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#1 2010-12-13 02:59:27

senorsmile
Member
Registered: 2010-12-12
Posts: 72

new install... laptop battery won't charge

hello.  This is my first post.  I have a 3 year old compaq c700 laptop. I previously had windows xp and ubuntu installed on it. As I have heard and read about Arch Linux for a while, I wanted to see what it was all about.  I wiped the hard drive and installed Arch.  I have figured almost everything out through the wiki and the forums. What great documentation!!!

My one remaining problem:  the battery says it's at 0% and won't charge.  When I run acpi, it outputs

Battery 0: Charging, 5%, charging at zero rate - will never fully charge.

Well, it actually says that it's at 5% now.  I have had it plugged in for a few hours though.  On the other windows and ubuntu installs, battery charging worked just fine.  Any ideas what could be causing this?  I have googled and searched all around here and haven't found any ideas that have lead to a solution. 


Thanks in advance!  I look forward to eventually contributing to this community.

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#2 2010-12-13 15:10:23

Unia
Member
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Registered: 2010-03-30
Posts: 2,486
Website

Re: new install... laptop battery won't charge

Did you try to run it on battery? Maybe it works but doesn't 'talk to your laptop' correctly.


If you can't sit by a cozy fire with your code in hand enjoying its simplicity and clarity, it needs more work. --Carlos Torres

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#3 2010-12-13 16:43:49

skunktrader
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2010-02-14
Posts: 1,538

Re: new install... laptop battery won't charge

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#4 2010-12-13 20:06:02

senorsmile
Member
Registered: 2010-12-12
Posts: 72

Re: new install... laptop battery won't charge

skunktrader wrote:

Thanks for the info.  I did try to run it on battery and it didn't run long enough for it to even boot to a terminal login screen.  That post may shed some more light.  I will check once I get home to verify what acpi -p says.  I am using batti from aur and it says the same thing as acpi -V (i.e. battery at 6% or whatever.

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#5 2010-12-16 21:21:07

senorsmile
Member
Registered: 2010-12-12
Posts: 72

Re: new install... laptop battery won't charge

I have done a little more troubleshooting.  What seems to be happening is that whenever the laptop is powered on, I charge at the rate of about 1% / hour (totally rough estimate, but close enough).  If I power down the laptop and plug it in to the charger, it charges very quickly.  I left it for 3-4 hours after the battery said it was at 6%.  I powered it back on and the battery was at 100%.  I let it discharge to about 50%, which happened after about an hour (which is what I would expect) and then plugged it back in.  After about an hour I noticed two things. 
1. Every so often the batti icon says the battery is fully charged even though it's only at 52%.
2. It's still apparently charging very, very slowly.  Even according to acpi -p. 

Any ideas what is going on?  Thanks!

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#6 2010-12-17 00:02:18

Ben9250
Member
From: Bath - England
Registered: 2010-06-10
Posts: 208
Website

Re: new install... laptop battery won't charge

I believe my battery also charges at a very low rate when mine is plugged in. But then again mine is plugged in all the time. Interestingly Windows didn't communicate with my battery as well as linux did. It would tell me my battery is 100% all the time whenI charge it up, even though it lasted less and less, until eventually I installed Linux and it immediately revealed that the 100% Windows was on about was actually only 30% of the total battery.


"In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be done and a serious attempt to do it."
  - H. G. Wells

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#7 2010-12-17 01:08:36

senorsmile
Member
Registered: 2010-12-12
Posts: 72

Re: new install... laptop battery won't charge

Ben9250 wrote:

I believe my battery also charges at a very low rate when mine is plugged in. But then again mine is plugged in all the time. Interestingly Windows didn't communicate with my battery as well as linux did. It would tell me my battery is 100% all the time whenI charge it up, even though it lasted less and less, until eventually I installed Linux and it immediately revealed that the 100% Windows was on about was actually only 30% of the total battery.

It sounds like your battery has suffered from never being discharged.  I have experienced similar in laptops.  I had an HP laptop that I basically used as a desktop for 3+ years.  It was always plugged in to the wall.  As a result, the battery life went down to about 5 minutes. 

In my case, however, the battery life is still good. I had Windows and Ubuntu installed on this machine just a couple of weeks ago, and the battery charging/life functioned as I would expect.  Since wiping and putting Arch on though, it only seems to charge more than 1-2%/hour if it's turned off.

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