Battery Monitor -- time remaining estimates incorrect to start with

Bug #77104 reported by merc
4
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-power-manager (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Low
Ubuntu Desktop Bugs

Bug Description

Binary package hint: gnome-applets

Hello,

There is a bit of a problem with the battery applet. I am using Feisty with all the updates, and a Lenovo V100 laptop.

The problem is especially there at the beginning. After a while, things get better. However, it takes a little too long.
This is a table of what the monitor tells me. At this point, the machine had been running for about 15 minutes (and the "battery left" was just silly to start with, but that's OK).

Here we go:

Time - Battery left
5:20PM - 1.54
5:21PM - 1.48
5:25PM - 1.35
5:30PM - 1.28
5:40PM - 1.15
5:45PM - 1.09
5:50PM - 1.04
5:55PM - 1.00
6.00PM - 0.56
6.05PM - 0.50

As you can see, it only starts telling the truth after about 35 minutes (that's 15 minutes before I started logging, plus 20 minutes after starting logging).

The computer was used the same way throughout these measurements: light internet browsing, etc. The fan turned itself on every now and again throughout the testing. PLEASE NOTE that I am in Australia, it's summer and it's bloody hot here.

This is the output of cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/*

alarm: unsupported
present: yes
design capacity: 28080 mWh
last full capacity: 28760 mWh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 10800 mV
design capacity warning: 1435 mWh
design capacity low: 861 mWh
capacity granularity 1: 574 mWh
capacity granularity 2: 27325 mWh
model number: LNV-92P1216
serial number: 2744
battery type: LION
OEM info: 06
present: yes
capacity state: ok
charging state: discharging
present rate: 16286 mW
remaining capacity: 14980 mWh
present voltage: 11186 mV

(Taken at 6:00PM)

The output of lshal is attached.
I know I might be knit picking, but really, 40 minutes to have a realistic estimate really is a little bit much.

I hope this helps. I am here if you need me to test it more - I am more than willing to keep track of what the estimates are every 10 minutes.

Bye!

Merc.

Revision history for this message
merc (merc) wrote :

Hi,

lshal attached...
Merry Christmas!

Merc.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Thank you for your bug. Is that with the gnome-applets batstat applet or with the gnome-power-manager icon?

Changed in gnome-applets:
assignee: nobody → desktop-bugs
importance: Undecided → Low
status: Unconfirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
merc (merc) wrote :

Hi,

It's with the gnome-power-manager icon!

By "batstat", do you mean the "Battery Charge Monitor" 2.16.2?

Do you want me to run the same test comparing the two applets? (They do seem to say different things!)

Merc.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

No need to test with the other one, the question was to know if the package is correct and it's not, reassigning

Changed in gnome-applets:
status: Needs Info → Unconfirmed
Revision history for this message
merc (merc) wrote :

Hi,

OK, one more comment: gnome-power-manager and the Battery Charge Monitor seem to give quite different time estimates...

This is kinda weird, because I expected the info to come from /proc - it obviously doesn't!
(Well, I assume how much battery there is comes from /proc, but the applets are to work out how much time is remaining).

In general, the Battery Charge Monitor seems to get a much mor ereliable estimate in a much shorter time.

Bye!

Merc.

Revision history for this message
Bryce Harrington (bryce) wrote :

Hi, what happens if you try this?
In gconf-editor, set apps->gnome-power-manager->use_profile_time to FALSE (unchecked).

I ran into a similar issue in bug 120258, and perhaps this setting would help here as well?

Revision history for this message
merc (merc) wrote :

Hi,

Unfortunately, I don't have access to that battery anymore. It's been quite a while...!
Can somebody else please take over?

Bye,

Merc.

Revision history for this message
Andres Herrera (andresh) wrote :

I'm closing this bug report as per reporter comments, it should be re opened by someone that have the same battery, same problems and can reproduce the bug with Hardy Heron.

Thanks

Changed in gnome-power-manager:
status: New → Invalid
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