[Dell Inspiron 5737] fwts reported high failure about klog[Firmware Bug]: battery: (dis)charge rate invalid.

[Taihsiang Ho]

Dell Inspiron 5737 (CID 201305-13636) with ubuntu 12.04.3

Steps to reproduce:
1. power on the system
2. open the terminal, use the command "dmesg | grep battery", you could see this message was dumped

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

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: linux-image-3.8.0-33-generic 3.8.0-33.48~precise1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-33.48~precise1-generic 3.8.13.11
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-33-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version k3.8.0-33-generic.
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.6
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC283 Analog [ALC283 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: ubuntu 1689 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: ubuntu 1689 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'MID'/'HDA Intel MID at 0x90710000 irq 61'
   Mixer name : 'Intel Haswell HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:80862807,80860101,00100000'
   Controls : 21
   Simple ctrls : 3
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'PCH'/'HDA Intel PCH at 0x90714000 irq 62'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC283'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0283,102805ec,00100002'
   Controls : 16
   Simple ctrls : 7
Date: Tue Nov 12 04:00:08 2013
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=d809501f-7daa-47a2-8299-1844cd4d75cc
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20130820.1)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Inspiron 5737
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-33-generic root=UUID=fdac94e0-b7ee-402a-a160-6567b65501c6 ro quiet splash initcall_debug vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-3.8.0-33-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-3.8.0-33-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.79.7
SourcePackage: linux-lts-raring
StagingDrivers: rts5139
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 08/30/2013
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A05
dmi.board.name: 04X8RP
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: X01
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: A05
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA05:bd08/30/2013:svnDellInc.:pnInspiron5737:pvrA05:rvnDellInc.:rn04X8RP:rvrX01:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvrA05:
dmi.product.name: Inspiron 5737
dmi.product.version: A05
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Taihsiang Ho, as per http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/inspiron-17r-5737/drivers an update to your BIOS is available (A06). If you update to this following https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BiosUpdate does it change anything? If it doesn't, could you please both specify what happened, and provide the output of the following terminal command:
sudo dmidecode -s bios-version && sudo dmidecode -s bios-release-date

Thank you for your understanding.

[Ivan Hu (ivan.hu)]

The failure,
battery: (dis)charge rate invalid

is due to kernel complain about the firmware report the negative Present Rate on the _BST method

the comment on kernel driver/acpi/battery.c,
 /* For buggy DSDTs that report negative 16-bit values for either
  * charging or discharging current and/or report 0 as 65536
  * due to bad math.
  */

kernel has workarounded it with using the ABS() positive value.
  battery->rate_now = abs((s16)battery->rate_now);