[AuckLUG] Reported Battery Life

[John Deverall]

Hi Everyone, 

One question. 

I'm using Debian Etch (stable)

I've just purchased a new battery for my ibm x23 notebook and the
reported ACPI charge time for the battery and the ACPI reported battery
charge vs the actual battery life don't seem to bare any relationship to
each other. 

These aren't hard figures - but the battery (according to ACPI) drops
from 100% charged to 3% charged in about 20-30 minutes. This causes the
low battery warning light to flash on the notebook and using Gnome at
least (which I don't generally use I use fluxbox) causes the computer to
shutdown (or hibernate?? Not sure which). The notebook then doesn't turn
on again until connected to mains supply. 

However if I boot into fluxbox which does not cause the computer to shut
down, the battery powers the computer using its remaining 20 mah's
(which is all it is reporting) for at least another two hours (I haven't
tested beyond this). 

To charge the battery to 100% (figures from /proc/acpi) takes about 6-7
hours, it charges incredibly slowly. 

What's going wrong here? Is my setup screwy? is acpi a bit dumb? Should
I be using APM? or could the battery be at fault? 

Any ideas here? 

Thanks, 

John

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