Battery Usage

Linux Support
1

Hi Guys

My wife has a Lenovo G555 laptop that I’ve just installed peppermint 3 on (she finally seen the light)

The default battery indicator when fully charged seems to be accurate untill about 74% then it will suddenly jump down to 4% in a matter of minutes then a pop up box will appear warning battery is low and the red battery warning light will start flashing on the laptop, however it will continue to run for almost another hour before shutting down

I installed the battery indicator from the panel menu and it constantly reads full charge.

Although I suspect the battery is on the way out it seems the default battery indicator is inconsistant and the panel indicator is plain not working

All in all she gets about little over an hour battery usage from a fully charged battery just web browsing

Can anyone explain the inconsistant readings from the battery indicators and whether the problem could just be the general condition of the battery

Any advice anyone can offer would be much appreciated.

Many Thanks

Graeme

2

On any LXDE desktop I usually install xfce4-power-manager
(It might already been installed on Peppermint)

sudo apt-get install xfce4-power-manager

When installed start it with:

xfce4-power-manager-settings

When the icon appear on the bar then right click and go to Power Information->Battery and compare Energy full design with Energy full.

If you see a big mismatch then your battery capacity is greatly reduced (even though it is 100% charged).

To make it run on boot then:

sudo nano /etc/xdg/lxsession/Peppermint/autostart
#add
@xfce4-power-manager
3

Hi SeZo

Thanks for the reply

I’m sure it’s the xfce 4 power manager that’s already installed the other one I got from the panel settings menu but that just reads full charge all the time which is obviously wrong.

Anyway I’m still at work (should be in the garden drinking beer :slight_smile: ) but I’ll check out the mismatch thing when I get home

Many thanks

Graeme

4

2 things …

a) For the battery indicator … make sure acpid is installed:

sudo apt-get install acpid

b) For better battery life … install the “jupiter” power manager … instructions here:
http://linuxforums.org.uk/index.php?topic=10313.msg76525#msg76525

5
b) For better battery life .. install the "jupiter" power manager .. instructions here:
I was under the impression that Jupiter was retired last year because most of the features were incorporated into the kernel, thus making it redundant. TLP seems to be the new kid on the block. Yet to try it. :)
6

This is true … but Jupiter still works on Peppermint3 as it doesn’t have a new enough kernel for TLP

7
When the icon appear on the bar then right click and go to Power Information->Battery and compare Energy full design with Energy full.

Energy full design = 51.3 WH

Energy full = 35.9 WH

Is that a vast enough difference to suggest the battery neeeds replaced ?

Many thanks

Graeme

8
Is that a vast enough difference to suggest the battery neeeds replaced ?

Well that depends on how it is used. If do not leave the vicinity of a power outlet then I would say leave it alone.
As long as you remember that when it shows 100% you only got 70% of the original design charge/time left.

I still run my laptop with (79 WH design) 22% total capacity and last about an hour on full charge, but it never leaves the house :smiley: