# Battery Dies Almost Instantly

## kretsch

This could very well be just that I have an old, bad battery (and it had gone unused for quite a while before I adopted it and rescued it from Windows 98  :Very Happy:  ), but I'd like to know if anyone else has had this problem and fixed it w/o replacing the battery.

I'm running an old Compaq Presario 1255, and whenever I unplug the AC, within a few minutes my system beeps at me and suspends and my battery light blinks.  I plug in the AC and hit enter and the system resumes, and everything's fine.

Since I was trying to figure out how to do suspend/sleep/hibernate/etc, I had just done a cat /proc/apm and it showed 100% for the battery.  I just now did a cat /proc/apm and it shows 0%! (and it was literally less than a minute from unplug to out of juice)

Something weird is that I compiled ACPI support into my kernel (2.6) but there is no /proc/acpi.

I also have had trouble figuring out how to actually use APM and ACPI features once I have them compiled.  I tried emerging apmd but the compile just flat-out failed.

Any help with either problem (especially the Amazing Instantly Draining Battery) is much appreciated.

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## gareth

I have a Presario 1600 laptop, and have the same problems in Windows and Linux.  I've put it down to a naff battery myself.

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## nyowe

I am having exactly the same problem but in my case it is a brand new battery we are talking about... any help??... Anyone??

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## nyowe

no replies yet  :Sad:  ?!... getting rather desperate... i will try again with the info provides in this thread https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=147898 and feedback

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## sethleon

hey ... exactly the same problem I have,

in former times as I used windows on my laptop the battery ran nearly 2 h

and if I use it now (with gentoo) plugging out AC I have only 1 to 4 min of running time before my laptop crashs   :Sad: 

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## albright

why not try booting with a windows boot floppy, unplugging the

ac and see how long the computer lasts; if this is a linux

problem (chances low to zero IMHO) then your computers

should last a good deal longer than FOUR MINUTES

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## sethleon

if I let my notebook boot without AC it crashs,

by the way my notebook does not have a floppy drive

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## Boris27

I have that too. It just went gradually from 100% to 54%, and then BAM! to 3%. It did it in windows too, and it is definitely the battery.

My laptop is an Omnibook XE3, 550Celeron 128MB.

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## nyowe

strange thing y'all. i made a clean install of gentoo (with kernel 2.6.5, udev, xorg-x11 and xfce4) and now i am able to work normally with the battery. Could the problem be linked to KDE  :Question:   :Question:   :Question: 

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## dopey

 *nyowe wrote:*   

> strange thing y'all. i made a clean install of gentoo (with kernel 2.6.5, udev, xorg-x11 and xfce4) and now i am able to work normally with the battery. Could the problem be linked to KDE   

 

likely you were running into a problem with ACPI.  There was a race condition prior to 2.6.5 in the ACPI code if your BST access methods in the ACPI DSDT were not serialized.  if more than one thing was access the acpi BST node for your battery things went bad shortly.

2.6.5 fixed it, although, occasionally your battery will show 0% for a second because of the way the fix was implemented.

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## sethleon

strangely kernel 2.6.5-rc3 (also tried 2.6.5) does not fix my battery problem,

it really seems to be a sign of wear,

here my report:

i used "acpi -V" to get the remaining time,

this is the course of discharging:

[EDIT] I did this in console without having started nvidia modules or KDE [/EDIT]

```
%     time (hh:mm:ss)

100%  17:18:32

99%   00:35:49

98%   00:36:15

97%   00:35:30

96%   00:33:52

95%   00:33:48

7%    00:02:27

3%    00:01:00

```

this happened within: 00:01:52:933 (hh:mm:ss:xxx)  <-- xxx = milli seconds

then my laptop crashs and I have to boot it again.

This is not even the worst.

Reading the guarantee card, I read the worst:

(translated to english:)

 *Quote:*   

> The battery is supposed to be a sign of wear, therefore its guarantee is limited to 6 months.

 

[2nd EDIT] I bought it in August / September of the last year, now you can calculate and conclude ... [/2nd EDIT]

The second worst is as follows,

after that extrem loss of energy (see above) 

the battery needs at least 2 or 3 hours to be charged fully.

Now it only needs about 5 minutes.

 :Confused:   :Confused: 

Recently I wrote an email to Gericom (my supporting producer),

I hope they tell me where to get a new battery I need.

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## sethleon

another strange thing:

```
cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info

present:                 yes

design capacity:         4000 mWh

last full capacity:      699 mWh

battery technology:      rechargeable

design voltage:          14800 mV

design capacity warning: 69 mWh

design capacity low:     34 mWh

capacity granularity 1:  120 mWh

capacity granularity 2:  8 mWh

model number:            755

serial number:           001

battery type:            LiON

OEM info:                OEM

```

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## dopey

lithium ion batteries have roughly a 500 dischrage cycle lifespan.  That's 500 full discharges.  For some people that could be reached relatively quickly.  I'd say 6 months guarantee on the battery sucks though.  in 6 months, it could easily be a defect in the battery.  Most of the manufacturers i've bought laptops from have a 1 year warranty on the batteries.

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## sethleon

 :Idea:  Fortunately, I have found a good solution. (work-around)

I will buy an universal battery.   :Smile: 

e.g. from: www.laptopbattery.com

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