Incorrect warning about eeepc battery

[Sitsofe Wheeler]

Binary package hint: gnome-power-manager

Description of the problem:
gnome-power-manager incorrectly pops up a warning about an unhealthy battery in my EeePC 900. Further the battery statistics are somewhat bizarre as the EeePC is quirky in how it reports this information back to the OS.

Steps to reproduce:
Start Ubuntu 9.10 on an EeePC 900 with a fresh battery in it.

Expected result:
No warnings to be shown. Battery information to be somewhat sensible.

Actual result:
A "Your battery may be broken" message is shown. The capacity (always reported as 1.9%) and charge values (always beween 0.0 and 0.8) are strange.

Version information:
Ubuntu karmic
gnome-power-manager 2.28.1-0ubuntu1

Additional information:
The acpi output looks something like this:
present: yes
design capacity: 5200 mAh
last full capacity: 100 mAh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 8400 mV
design capacity warning: 20 mAh
design capacity low: 10 mAh
capacity granularity 1: 52 mAh
capacity granularity 2: 52 mAh
model number: 900
serial number:
battery type: LION
OEM info: ASUS

I think I remember reading that you were only supposed to report do it this way with non-rechargeable batteries but now the problem is here we are pretty much stuck with it. This might also be https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=439460 .

[Nicolas M (nicolas-martin-gmail)]

Same here on an Asus eeepc 701.
At startup, it warns about a battery defect due to capacity at 1.9%
Strangely, when I right click the gnome-power-manager icon in the bar, and select History, the details tab of battery shows:
Percentage: 50% (this is correct)
Capacity: 1.9% (What does that mean ??)

Here are some dumps of /proc/acpi/battery:

ubuntu@eeepc:~$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info
present: yes
design capacity: 5200 mAh
last full capacity: 100 mAh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 8400 mV
design capacity warning: 20 mAh
design capacity low: 10 mAh
capacity granularity 1: 52 mAh
capacity granularity 2: 52 mAh
model number: 701
serial number:
battery type: LION
OEM info: ASUS
ubuntu@eeepc:~$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state
present: yes
capacity state: ok
charging state: discharging
present rate: unknown
remaining capacity: 60 mAh
present voltage: 7462 mV

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

The capacity is basically how much charge the battery thinks it can still hold compared to when it was new.

[Vincent van Beveren (vincent-nazarene)]

I'm pretty sure this is a bug in how the capacity data is interpreted by ACPI. I have exactly the same problem on my EEE 900 netbook:

vincent@lappy:~$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state
present: yes
design capacity: 5200 mAh
last full capacity: 100 mAh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 8400 mV
design capacity warning: 20 mAh
design capacity low: 10 mAh
capacity granularity 1: 52 mAh
capacity granularity 2: 52 mAh
model number: 900
serial number:
battery type: LION
OEM info: ASUS
present: yes
capacity state: ok
charging state: discharging
present rate: unknown
remaining capacity: 30 mAh
present voltage: 7316 mV

to me it seems it interprets a percentage as a mAh.

[Frantique (undernetangel)]

Confirmed here too. Any solution for this?

[Artem Popov (artfwo)]

Same thing here on an ASUS eeePC 701.

[greycode (greycodemail)]

For <email address hidden> and <email address hidden>

Having another eeepc 900 I've tried it's battery instead of mine (
because my battery is really old and may cause this problem). With the
new battery I had the same bug - so it's 100% a bug.

I don't know how to fix it, but using ubuntu 9.04 I didn't have such a
problem, battery status worked well. I've read owners of other laptops
(not eeepc) also had this problem. It's general problem of
power-manager. May be it's possible to solve a problem by using
applets or scripts. With eeecontol applet I've had the same bug. For
the popular elmurato scripts - I've not tried it. I prefer to wait for
developers to fix this bug, because it's relevant general defect of OS
rather to look for script-like solutions.

2009/11/4, Артём Попов <email address hidden>:
> Same thing here on an ASUS eeePC 701.
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-power-manager (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Confirmed
>
> --
> Incorrect warning about eeepc battery
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/460631
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in "gnome-power-manager" package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: gnome-power-manager
>
> Description of the problem:
> gnome-power-manager incorrectly pops up a warning about an unhealthy battery
> in my EeePC 900. Further the battery statistics are somewhat bizarre as the
> EeePC is quirky in how it reports this information back to the OS.
>
> Steps to reproduce:
> Start Ubuntu 9.10 on an EeePC 900 with a fresh battery in it.
>
> Expected result:
> No warnings to be shown. Battery information to be somewhat sensible.
>
> Actual result:
> A "Your battery may be broken" message is shown. The capacity (always
> reported as 1.9%) and charge values (always beween 0.0 and 0.8) are strange.
>
> Version information:
> Ubuntu karmic
> gnome-power-manager 2.28.1-0ubuntu1
>
> Additional information:
> The acpi output looks something like this:
> present: yes
> design capacity: 5200 mAh
> last full capacity: 100 mAh
> battery technology: rechargeable
> design voltage: 8400 mV
> design capacity warning: 20 mAh
> design capacity low: 10 mAh
> capacity granularity 1: 52 mAh
> capacity granularity 2: 52 mAh
> model number: 900
> serial number:
> battery type: LION
> OEM info: ASUS
>
> I think I remember reading that you were only supposed to report do it this
> way with non-rechargeable batteries but now the problem is here we are
> pretty much stuck with it. This might also be
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=439460 .
>

[Ferry Toth (ftoth)]

I believe the eeepc battery reports the last full capacity in % of the design capacity. So 100mA should actutally 100% of 5200mAh

The same problem occurs in intripid, jaunty and karmic. I was hoping it to be solved by now, but alas.

I have no idea where to fix this problem, but it is certainly annoying.

Ferry

[greycode (greycodemail)]

To <email address hidden>

You mean for some reason power-manager sees 100% charge as 100mha
(it's really 1,9% of 5200mha)? I've not noticed such an easy
explanations. If you are right - this bug is simple and easy to be
fixed.

About such a problem on other ubuntu builds - I've not experienced the
bug on jaunty (using same eeepc 900)

2009/11/6, Ferry Toth <email address hidden>:
> I believe the eeepc battery reports the last full capacity in % of the
> design capacity. So 100mA should actutally 100% of 5200mAh
>
> The same problem occurs in intripid, jaunty and karmic. I was hoping it
> to be solved by now, but alas.
>
> I have no idea where to fix this problem, but it is certainly annoying.
>
> Ferry
>
> --
> Incorrect warning about eeepc battery
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/460631
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “gnome-power-manager” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: gnome-power-manager
>
> Description of the problem:
> gnome-power-manager incorrectly pops up a warning about an unhealthy battery
> in my EeePC 900. Further the battery statistics are somewhat bizarre as the
> EeePC is quirky in how it reports this information back to the OS.
>
> Steps to reproduce:
> Start Ubuntu 9.10 on an EeePC 900 with a fresh battery in it.
>
> Expected result:
> No warnings to be shown. Battery information to be somewhat sensible.
>
> Actual result:
> A "Your battery may be broken" message is shown. The capacity (always
> reported as 1.9%) and charge values (always beween 0.0 and 0.8) are strange.
>
> Version information:
> Ubuntu karmic
> gnome-power-manager 2.28.1-0ubuntu1
>
> Additional information:
> The acpi output looks something like this:
> present: yes
> design capacity: 5200 mAh
> last full capacity: 100 mAh
> battery technology: rechargeable
> design voltage: 8400 mV
> design capacity warning: 20 mAh
> design capacity low: 10 mAh
> capacity granularity 1: 52 mAh
> capacity granularity 2: 52 mAh
> model number: 900
> serial number:
> battery type: LION
> OEM info: ASUS
>
> I think I remember reading that you were only supposed to report do it this
> way with non-rechargeable batteries but now the problem is here we are
> pretty much stuck with it. This might also be
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=439460 .
>

[Thomas Meixner (tom-meixner)]

I observed the same problem on a Dell Inspirion 6000 although it shows the battery at around 40%.
What is much more annoying than the message, in the last session with AC power plugged in and 100% charged battery, the system siren (beeeuuubeeeuu ...) for a critically low battery appeared twice without reason.

Unfortunately I cannot give more details since it's on an install I did for a friend and he took the laptop with him. I hope this doesn't spoil his first experience with Ubuntu since the rest seems to be working. For comparison, my IBM x41 doesn't show any problems with the battery.

[BandD (swords-into-plowshares)]

Can confirm on an eeepc 701 with 9.10 netbook remix installed. Happy to report any dumps deemed necessary.

[hurt138 (hurt138-deactivatedaccount)]

Not sure if this will help anyone, but I use to have this problem on a older version of Ubuntu. I am also seeing the issue now on my Thinkpad T61. I use to fix this by setting power management to do nothing at critical low batter. When it thought it was out it would keep going for another 30 or 40 min. Next charge it would have more power and doing it a few times would norm get me almost back to full charge and correct reporting.

I dont see a option now in power management to do nothing at critical low battery, so I have selected shutdown and am trying the fix with that setting.

[Fabio R. (frossie74)]

hello,
i have a eeepc900 and i have the same error with power manager with ubuntu 9.10;the notification about the remaining time battery was totally wrong .
i have updated my system recently .
With 9.04 release it works perfectly

[oliwek (oliwek2)]

Still the same problem with UNR 10.04 on my eee-pc 4G (701)... It was already the case with Karmic 9.10 netbook remix on the same netbook (always shows this alarming 1.9% capacity supposedly left in the original 5200mah battery)