The resurrection of the battery

[NickStone]

Well this is weird.

The battery on my laptop refused to charge for the last two months and the only way I could get the laptop to work was to connect the power cable to the mains. For the last two months the battery power was stuck at 0% and wouldn't charge.

Today I have discovered that the battery has started to charge and am now powering the laptop by the battery. It is weird that it just started to work. I wonder if as santa is travelling round the globe delivering gifts if he has sprinkled some of his magic to resurrect the battery.

[oshunluvr]

One of my laptops (a Dell Vostro V13) wouldn't charge unless it was powered off. I just upgraded it from 12.10 to 14.10 (and the do-release-upgrade went swimmingly ) and I haven't checked to see if the upgrade fixed the issue...

[NickStone]

I few days ago I installed Linux Mint because I wanted to check out Cinnamon, whilst running Mint I noticed that the battery was no longer charging when connected to the mains supply.

I noticed the issue when I had Ubuntu and Debian installed on the laptop. I am just wondering if it's to do with the way Ubuntu compile the kernel which is preventing the battery on this laptop (Dell Inspiron 6400) from working properly.

I have now installed Arch Linux using Archbang and the battery is once again being charged.

I think it;s a case of bye bye Ubuntu / Debian and other Ubuntu / Debian based distro's.

[Worzel]

Been running Kubuntu on my laptop for the last years and never had any problem with charging.

Can't see why any system would want to prevent battery charging - would seem to be counter-productive. Besides, how would software work to interrupt the power supply to the battery, surely that would be 'hard wired'?

[oshunluvr]

Been running Kubuntu on my laptop for the last years and never had any problem with charging.

Can't see why any system would want to prevent battery charging - would seem to be counter-productive. Besides, how would software work to interrupt the power supply to the battery, surely that would be 'hard wired'?

I disagree. You're assuming the hardware monitors the battery state and controls the charging when the laptop is on. Since both Nick and I have had the similar experiences - his not charging when using Ubuntu/Debian and mine not charging unless powered off would lead me to believe something in the OS is controlling the battery charging state. Counter-productive indeed but nonetheless happening in at least two instances. The fact that your or any other laptop doesn't have this issue isn't really meaningful to solving the issue. All my other laptops (6 over the years) running Kubuntu do not have this issue.

I'm going to go check my Dell that I recently upgraded to 14.10 and see if the issue still exists. I've been in the habit off powering down and plugging it in since this cropped up. I believe it started with 11.10 for me.

[NickStone]

I would just like to add that this issue with the battery not charging only started a few months ago. I bought the laptop in 2010 (as a 2nd hand machine) and had no issues up until a few months ago. Now it could be something simple like the hardware is starting to fail as the laptop is old (geriatric in computer terms) and that the kernel compiled by Debian / Ubuntu may have something missing which is preventing the battery from charging (I don't know). The reason why I think this is because I have only noticed it happen with Debian and Ubuntu distros.

This laptop will probably be binned in the not too distant future because Dell no longer provide batteries for it and I'm not going to buy another compatible battery from a 3rd party company as the quality isn't as good.

Money is tight for me at the moment but I am saving up to buy a new(er) laptop to replace this geriatric one.

[oshunluvr]

I suspect it's the kernel - Arch works and Debian does not kind of indicates that I think.

[SteveRiley]

The OS controls the battery. You can discover all kinds of things:

grep . /sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/*/power_supply/BAT0/*

[Worzel]

Apologies - but it seemed ludicrous for any system to prevent hardware operating properly, possibly by error but surely not by intent.

Steve - thanks for the advice.

[oshunluvr]

I just checked, and indeed my Dell laptop (Vostro V13) does not charge when powered on, only when shut down.

[NickStone]

The OS controls the battery. You can discover all kinds of things:

grep . /sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/*/power_supply/BAT0/*

Thanks for the command

grep . /sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/*/power_supply/BAT0/*
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/alarm:440000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/capacity:54
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/capacity_level:Normal
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/charge_full:4692000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/charge_full_design:4400000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/charge_now:2559000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/current_now:1578000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/cycle_count:0
grep: /sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/device: Is a directory
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/manufacturer:PSW
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/model_name: DELL
grep: /sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/power: Is a directory
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/present:1
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/serial_number:231
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/status:Discharging
grep: /sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/subsystem: Is a directory
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/technology:Li-ion
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/type:Battery
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Discharging
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-ion
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=11100000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=10617000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_CURRENT_NOW=1578000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=4400000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=4692000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=2559000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=54
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY_LEVEL=Normal
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME= DELL
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=PSW
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/uevent:POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER=231
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/voltage_min_design:11100000
/sys/bus/acpi/drivers/battery/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/voltage_now:10617000

[NickStone]

I just checked, and indeed my Dell laptop (Vostro V13) does not charge when powered on, only when shut down.

Would you consider installing another distro just to check if it is just Debian/Ubuntu distros? It doesn't have to be Arch.

[oshunluvr]

I might do that. I'll try a non-debian brand. If I recall, Chakra is based on Arch and somewhat simpler to install.

[NickStone]

I might do that. I'll try a non-debian brand. If I recall, Chakra is based on Arch and somewhat simpler to install.

I'm sure you already know, Chakra is only for 64 bit PC's.

I'm thinking of installing Fedora or openSUSE to see if the same thing happens with them.

Edit: KaOS is very similar to Chakra.

From KaOS web site

The idea behind KaOS is to create a tightly integrated rolling and transparent distribution for the modern desktop, build from scratch with a very specific focus.
Focus on one DE (KDE), one toolkit (Qt), one architecture (x86_64) plus a focus on evaluating and selecting the most suitable tools and applications.

[oshunluvr]

Well Nick. I was hopeful that Arch (via Chakra) would help me but no good - battery still only charges when powered off. I also tried a Gentoo based live distro but no different. Maybe I'll try Fedora next?