- This topic has 11 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated Jun 21-5:15 pm by mroot.
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k-ray
Hi,
I have a very weird problem on my hands.
I have been using linux for a long time and the last weeks I have been trying Antix (runit 19.2) and since have a very odd problem with the batteries going unusable.
First the time on battery use went down very quickly so I thought the battery is worn and time for a new one.
The ‘energy’ mentioned by upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0 was ‘0Wh’ although when measured with a voltmeter the cells seem to be ok.
Anyway I ordered a new batterypack (66Wh) and in the beginning all seems fine.
After a week or two the laptop suddenly switched off and when turned back on with mains power the charge light doesn’t come on, and the battery status is 100% charged, giving an ‘energy’ level of 6600Wh !!
So the laptop thinks full battery, but in fact completely discharged.
I don’t know what to make of it and I ask the seller which send me a new battery pack.
Now again a few weeks later I regulary check the ‘energy’ level and it goes to all places.
Yesterday:8,61Wh
Today: 789,105Wh which isn’t possible and again the same problem: the cells are discharged, but the laptop still thinks 100% charged.
Is there anything to do I switched to Antix and how to resolve this issue?
A normal ‘reset’ of the batteries as normally is done, can’t be done here, because the laptop thinks the batteries are full.
Xecure
It may be that your computer is newer than the driver in the kernel, and a newer kernel will have better support for the reading and managing of battery information.
Just in case, could you post your inxi -Fxz so we could check?
inxi -FxzantiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.BobC
Its actually determined before it boots when it powers up, I think.
System:
Host: akoya Kernel: 4.19.100-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits: 64
compiler: gcc v: 8.3.0 Desktop: JWM 2.3.7
Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Medion product: P6634 v: 1.0 serial: <filter>
Mobo: Medion model: P6634 v: 1.0 serial: <filter>
BIOS: American Megatrends v: 301 date: 11/28/2012
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 789.1 Wh condition: 789.1/66.0 Wh (1196%)
model: A15 A15–26 status: Unknown
CPU:
Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3-2350M bits: 64 type: MT MCP
arch: Sandy Bridge rev: 7 L2 cache: 3072 KiB
flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 18358
Speed: 2013 MHz min/max: 800/2300 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 798 2: 799
3: 798 4: 798
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics
vendor: Pegatron driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0
Device-2: NVIDIA GF108M [GeForce GT 630M] vendor: Pegatron driver: nouveau
v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
resolution: 1366×768~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Sandybridge Mobile v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.6
direct render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio
vendor: Pegatron driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.100-antix.1-amd64-smp
Network:
Device-1: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 [Rainbow Peak] driver: iwlwifi
v: kernel port: d000 bus ID: 03:00.0
IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR8151 v2.0 Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Pegatron
driver: atl1c v: 1.0.1.1-NAPI port: 9000 bus ID: 05:00.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 308.10 GiB (66.2%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST500LT012-1DG142 size: 465.76 GiB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 14.54 GiB used: 4.97 GiB (34.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 59.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 56 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
Processes: 170 Uptime: 45m Memory: 7.70 GiB used: 868.4 MiB (11.0%)
Init: runit runlevel: 2 Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 Shell: bash v: 5.0.3
inxi: 3.0.36Xecure
It could be 2 things:
A. The kernel does not have/load a more compatible driver for the battery.
B. Maybe a power-manager app will better detect it.For now, you can check
inxi -Bxxx
in antiX.If you have time, boot MXLinux 19.2 live and see if XFCE4-power-manager detect your battery charge correctly, and if
inxi -Bxxx
gives you different information.From here we can check at the same time how a different kernel and power-management tool will detect the battery information.
If the result is the same, then I don’t know how to continue exploring the problem.
If the result is different, you can try in your antiX install to:
a) Use a MXLinux kernel or Debian kernel and see if battery detection improves.
b) Download and test a power-manager to see if detection improves.antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.As far as resetting the capacity, the instructions I used in the past were to run the battery all the way down to absolutely nothing, and then make sure by trying to power it up on battery a couple times, and then boot it into BIOS setup, and leave it on the BIOS setup screen until the battery is fully charged, then reboot and run the operating system once the battery is fully charged.
Xecure’s ideas above sound good software wise. I run xbattbar and it works on all of mine. I think its in the repos, but I tweaked the one I’m running to feed my conky.
Xecure:
$ inxi -B
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 789.1 Wh condition: 789.1/66.0 Wh (1196%)BobC:
the traditional ‘recalibrate’ can’t be done here.
the battery is drained completely but laptop still thinks it 100% so it DOESN’T charge and so I can’t do a charge cycle.
3rd battery in a month time with the same issue.
It started when installing Antix. I don’t know what to think of it.xbattbar: Can’t read proc info: No such file or directory
child process (/usr/lib/xbattbar/xbattbar-check-apm) has returned non-zero code: 1- This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by k-ray.
It all seems very unusual.
Do you still have the original battery, even if it won’t hold a charge anymore? I would look at the model number on it and search and make sure the new battery is really the correct replacement.
Try the steps above with the original battery and see if it works, even if its percentage is low it means the system is working, and that means the new battery must be the wrong one or bad if it doesn’t work, too.
Xecure
Try a debian kernel and see if you have better luck (installed from synaptic or from antiX package installer).
I am telling you this because my particular battery was not detected on any antiX kernel (couldn’t even charge), but it was half detected by Debian kernel (MX version). Maybe it will not help your situation, but maybe it could. Test it out to make sure, and then you can discard the kernel as a possible source of the problem.
antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.Good to know for me. I guess I’ve been lucky.
AR
As the Medion company was acquired by Lenovo in 2011, then I suspect that this laptop has weird battery controller from Lenovo. Lenovo supports their laptop hardware (including battery controller) by the Vantage software, which is only for Windows 10, and can be downloaded only from Microsoft Store. Just for testing of his laptop @k-ray may install Win10, register at M$, get Vantage software and test or set up properly the battery controller. Then return to antiX. đ
My suspicion was wrong. I found specs for this model and not found there neither “weird Lenovo battery controller”, nor Lenovo Vantage software. Sorry for misguiding.- This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by AR.
mroot
xbattbar: Canât read proc info: No such file or directory
child process (/usr/lib/xbattbar/xbattbar-check-apm) has returned non-zero code: 1xbattbar is very old and was initially designed to work with apm (Advanced power management) which was designed in 1990s. Computers now use acpi for power management and that is why you got the error message. To use xbattbar with a modern computer it needs to be used with the -c option. So you should write
xbattbar -c
instead of just xbattbar. I wrote up a mini guide to xbattbar in the link below. I hope you find it helpful.
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/xbattbar-a-battery-monitor-alternative-2/
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