System does not see the battery

Asked by David

On a Acer Aspire 5553, with Ubuntu 10.10
the system does not see the battery, hence no icon in the control panel (or the icon always shows as plugged).
I've tried with the applet battery-status, but it's the same.
The line cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info shows :
 battery no
But the laptop works fine on battery. It's just bothering not to know how low or high it is.

Thanks

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John Hart (jlhart68) said :
#1

Same problem except mine shows battery when running "cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info". I get no battery status, I do not know the discharge state or the charge state or how long it will operate.

Acer Aspire TimelineX model 4820T
Dual boot w/ Win7 and Ubuntu 10.10.

Problem exists only with Ubuntu 10.10 and not W7.

john@jNightHawk:~$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info
present: yes
design capacity: 4400 mAh
last full capacity: 4400 mAh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 11100 mV
design capacity warning: 300 mAh
design capacity low: 132 mAh
cycle count: 0
capacity granularity 1: 32 mAh
capacity granularity 2: 32 mAh
model number: BAT1
serial number: 11
battery type: 11
OEM info: 11

Revision history for this message
MrMan9879 (andrewsmythe) said :
#2

I too am having the same issue, and on an Acer as well... TravelMate 8472T. The Power Management icon is in the top right corner, as it should be, but says "No Battery". The laptop runs for at least 2 hours on battery life (haven't tested longer.)

cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info shows:
present: no

So it doesn't seem to detect the battery... searched everywhere and haven't found a solution.

Revision history for this message
John Hart (jlhart68) said :
#3

OK, here is what I did to correct the problem and some others. I flashed the BIOS with an update. I went from ver. 1.15 to ver. 1.19 which I downloaded off the Acer Aspire TimelineX support site.

I now have my battery states, but because of a kernel bug, no statics can be obtained.

MrMan9879 you might look for a BIOS update for your model. I have a dual boot laptop so I was able to install it using that other OS (W7). If you don't have that other OS there are still ways to flash the BIOS, but you will have to use FreeDOS and UNetBootin. I am not sure of the complete procedure.

Revision history for this message
John Hart (jlhart68) said :
#4

OK, here is what I did to correct the problem and some others. I flashed the BIOS with an update. I went from ver. 1.15 to ver. 1.19 which I downloaded off the Acer Aspire TimelineX support site.

I now have my battery states, but because of a kernel bug, no statics can be obtained.

MrMan9879 you might look for a BIOS update for your model. I have a dual boot laptop so I was able to install it using that other OS (W7). If you don't have that other OS there are still ways to flash the BIOS, but you will have to use FreeDOS and UNetBootin. I am not sure of the complete procedure.

Revision history for this message
Naveen Agarwal (nav.coder) said :
#5

I am also facing the same problem .

When i type the following command: "cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info "
I get answer as :" present no"

My machine is :Toshiba satellite L640

Dual boot-
1.Ubuntu version :Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid
2.Windows 7

Windows 7 is detecting the battery.

Revision history for this message
thanhbv (thanhbv) said :
#6

same problem.
toshiba L645
dual boot natty beta 2 & win7 (win7 detected the battery)
"cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info" => "present: no"

Revision history for this message
John Hart (jlhart68) said :
#7

My Acer TimelineX sees the batter, after I updated the BIOS to ver 1.19
> john@NightHawk:~$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info
> present: yes
> design capacity: 6000 mAh
> last full capacity: 5863 mAh
> battery technology: rechargeable
> design voltage: 10800 mV
> design capacity warning: 300 mAh
> design capacity low: 0 mAh
> cycle count: 0
> capacity granularity 1: 32 mAh
> capacity granularity 2: 32 mAh
> model number: AS10B5E
> serial number: A298
> battery type: LION
> OEM info: PANASONIC
> john@NightHawk:~$
> john@NightHawk:~$

On 04/27/2011 11:34 AM, thanhbv wrote:
> Question #134018 on acpi in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpi/+question/134018
>
> thanhbv posted a new comment:
> same problem.
> toshiba L645
> dual boot natty beta 2& win7 (win7 detected the battery)
> "cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info" => "present: no"
>

Revision history for this message
thanhbv (thanhbv) said :
#8

I updated BIOS to the latest version (download from toshiba.com). Same problem!

thanhbv@thanhbv-L645:~$ uname -a
Linux thanhbv-L645 2.6.38-8-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 11 03:31:24 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

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