Actually, this has happened on several versions of FC on two different notebooks. System works great, but my battery monitor is frustrating me. When I'm plugged in at boot, it shows a full battery meter and the little plug icon. When I unplug, it switches to a full battery and "drains" with the system, if I hover the mouse over it the percentage matches the "drain".

On the other hand, if I power the machine up without the AC connected, the battery meter is always empty. If I hover my mouse over it, it shows me a charge percentage that seems to be accurate, but the graphic doesn't match.

The opposite is also true. If I'm running on battery power and plug my notebook in, the battery meter changes to reflect the charge. If I'm plugged in when I power the computer up, the battery meter has a cord connected but is "full", though I can hover to get the charge percentage.

On a side note, all of my notebooks also exhibit significantly worse battery performance on Linux than they do in Windows (I tri-boot Windows, Fedora, and MacOS), and the fans always run in Linux.

This one is an HP DV8000t
coreDuo1.7
1024mb RAM
2xSATA 80GiB
17" Widescreen LCD

Kernel:
2.6.18-1.2868.fc6

ACPI in linux depends on BIOS supplied stuff which is often keyed to windows versions. As in, there is a file that says, in effect: "If the OS is not windows then stuff up the power management." (This is what is meant by that little sticker saying "made for MS windows".)

Google about acpi and learn all about it. Its a big subject.

So your power management will depend greatly on your laptop.

The fan always goes because (a) your CPU is always too hot, or (b) the temperature/fan settings don't work - so the fan is on all the time just in case.

For recent notebooks, the second is likely and the good folk in the acpi list are working on it. Get the acpi updates as they come out. If it turns out your BIOS DSDT was supplied broken, there will probably be a repaired one (google again).

I have noticed that my hardware runs hotter in Linux, could this be related? My server (when it HAD Windows on it) would run with the fans at a lower speed in Windows than they did in Linux, and do now. This focus on Windows compatability by hardware manufacturers is really starting to get old. . .