# Help Save Laptop Battery

## njlg

I have a Thinkpad A22e (model 2655-35u, I think) and I cannot seem to get APM/ACPI or anything related to saving power from the battery working. 

There is a short description of my system

```
Linux kia 2.6.3-gentoo-r1 #11 SMP Fri Mar 12 06:12:50 PST 2004 i686 Celeron (Coppermine) GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
```

```
 processor       : 0

vendor_id       : GenuineIntel

cpu family      : 6

model           : 8

model name      : Celeron (Coppermine)

stepping        : 10

cpu MHz         : 797.195

cache size      : 128 KB

fdiv_bug        : no

hlt_bug         : no

f00f_bug        : no

coma_bug        : no

fpu             : yes

fpu_exception   : yes

cpuid level     : 2

wp              : yes

flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse

bogomips        : 1576.96
```

```
processor id:            0

acpi id:                 1

bus mastering control:   yes

power management:        no

throttling control:      yes

limit interface:         yes

active limit:            P0:T0

user limit:              P0:T0

thermal limit:           P0:T0

active state:            C1

default state:           C1

bus master activity:     00000000

states:

   *C1:                  promotion[--] demotion[--] latency[000] usage[00000000]

    C2:                  <not supported>

    C3:                  <not supported>

state count:             8

active state:            T0

states:

   *T0:                  00%

    T1:                  12%

    T2:                  25%

    T3:                  37%

    T4:                  50%

    T5:                  62%

    T6:                  75%

    T7:                  87%
```

Now, I am not exactly keen on all the different types of mobile processor functionality (speedsteping, throttling), but I thought that the Coppermine processor had some ability to save on power consumption. Though, there is only one detected CPU state and throttling does not seem to consume less power.

With APM or ACPI compiled in (one but not the other), gkrellm2 (which is what I watch to see how the battery is doing) dooes not detect the battery consumption very accurately. First I let the battery charge for a long time and gkrellm2 reports that the batter has a 100% charge. I unplug the laptop and some of the BIOS stuff kicks in and dims the screen. Then I start working and watch the gkrellm2-battery meter fall tick by tick from 100% to about 75% and then it falls all the way down to 5% and the computer will beep and the charge light on the laptop will flash.

Naturally, I thought something was wrong with my ACPI core (and it had been compiled by Microsoft), so I decompiled and recompiled it, but only got a couple of warnings which seemed okay. There were a few values expected but not returned, but since all ACPI events were being logged I did not see any problems.

I cannot run cpufreqd, cpudyn, speefreq. Thus I was going to try to do the same thing with creating a acpi/default.sh file that would lower cpu-power consumption with various acpi-events, but I guess that cannot be done because the cpu only has one state.

Does anyone else have this laptop and advice or any other advice? Is my only alternative to use Windows??Last edited by njlg on Thu Apr 01, 2004 3:13 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## Earthwings

Does your battery behave similar in windows (falling from 75% to zero)? If yes, it would be time to replace it.

I think cpudyn is able to use throttling instead of speedstepping. You are right however that throttling doesn't save much energy, it's main use is keeping the temperature down. For some more details on how to have better power management support, see here.

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## njlg

I forgot to mention it is a brand new battery -- or it was before I installed from stage3 and tried to get APM/ACPI working.

I read the whole power-management page and tried everything, but cpufreqd/cpudyn/speedfreq do not start at all. My /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0 is empty as well.

----------

## njlg

No one?? No one else has a coppermine processor in their laptop (with working power-management)??

If there is no possible way that you know of, you could let me know that too. =]

----------

## Earthwings

Can you post the output of 

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

?

Are you absolutely sure the battery is ok? Sometimes even new bought batteries are in fact old ones. Do you have another OS (best would be windows in this rare case) to test if it behaves similar?

Btw, what does your avatar mean? If it has a meaning.

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## njlg

```
present:                 yes

design capacity:         38880 mWh

last full capacity:      18790 mWh

battery technology:      rechargeable

design voltage:          10800 mV

design capacity warning: 1944 mWh

design capacity low:     388 mWh

capacity granularity 1:  1 mWh

capacity granularity 2:  1 mWh

model number:            ThinkPad Battery

serial number:           

battery type:            LIon

OEM info:                IBM Corporation
```

and just incase it matters, my dmesg 

```
BIOS-e820: 0000000007ff0000 - 0000000007ffec00 (ACPI data)

 BIOS-e820: 0000000007ffec00 - 0000000008000000 (ACPI NVS)

ACPI: RSDP (v000 PTLTD                                     ) @ 0x000f7570

ACPI: RSDT (v001 PTLTD    RSDT   0x06041060  LTP 0x00000000) @ 0x07ff9a97

ACPI: FADT (v001 IBM    TP-10    0x06041060  0x00000000) @ 0x07ffeb65

ACPI: BOOT (v001 PTLTD  $SBFTBL$ 0x06041060  LTP 0x00000001) @ 0x07ffebd9

ACPI: DSDT (v001 IBM    TP-10    0x06041060 MSFT 0x0100000c) @ 0x00000000

ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040116

ACPI: IRQ9 SCI: Edge set to Level Trigger.

ACPI: Interpreter enabled

ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 *11)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 *11)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 *11)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 *11)

ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (00:00)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]

ACPI: Power Resource [PSER] (off)

ACPI: Power Resource [PSIO] (on)

ACPI: Embedded Controller [EC] (gpe 24)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] enabled at IRQ 11

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] enabled at IRQ 11

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 11

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 11

PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing

SBF: ACPI BOOT descriptor is wrong length (39)

ACPI: AC Adapter [AC] (on-line)

ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT0] (battery present)

ACPI: Processor [CPU] (supports C1, 8 throttling states)

ACPI: Thermal Zone [THM0] (30 C)

ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S4 S5)
```

I am not sure howelse to check the integrity of the battery. I do not have windows installed. But perhaps I should install it to make sure. I could keep it dual booted until I figure out the problem.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

my avatar is a symbol made by the band Einsturzende Neubauten

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## Earthwings

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> design capacity:         38880 mWh 
> 
> last full capacity:      18790 mWh 
> ...

 

That will be the problem. Your battery is quite fubar because it doesn't even charge to half of it's capacity. As it's a new one, try to claim your warranty.

----------

## Nornagest

Afaik know modern batteries have to be kind of calibrated if they are new, they reach their best capacity after being charged some times.

So you should alway charge und uncharge it fully, at least for the first 5 times or so.

I hope that helps.

Nornagest

----------

## Earthwings

I doubt that it can make such a difference. However, here are the IBM tips: http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1PFAN-3QNQJN

----------

## dtor

Well, that's what you get for using Celeron (crippled with regard to power management) instead of Pentium chip. If you throttle your speed low enough it will save you some battery life but throttling is not as efficient as C or P states (which your chip does not seem to support).

But there are other venues to save battery life - shut down all unneeded devices - such as PCMCIA wireless cards, dim your screen and spin down you hard drive when not in use. Look for laptop-mode patches - they should help.

----------

## Earthwings

 *dtor wrote:*   

> Well, that's what you get for using Celeron (crippled with regard to power management) instead of Pentium chip. If you throttle your speed low enough it will save you some battery life but throttling is not as efficient as C or P states (which your chip does not seem to support).
> 
> But there are other venues to save battery life - shut down all unneeded devices - such as PCMCIA wireless cards, dim your screen and spin down you hard drive when not in use. Look for laptop-mode patches - they should help.

 

The problem is the broken battery. Really.

Power Management can save quite a lot energy, but not that much.

----------

## njlg

Thanks a lot for all the tips and info.

I installed Windows and it seems like the laptop ran just under an hour on the battery with everything turned on and no screen/disk suspension (though it suspended once -- so I am going to charge it up again and see what happens).

I think the battery is still under the warranty, so I will try to contact the seller about that.

Is it possible that I messed up the battery at all? I never let it fully charge (if that takes 12 hours) and run fully out all the time. Would that affect the battery that much?

----------

