Hello!
I have troubles with my battery. When i bought it and plugged it in my computer the kde's battery tool showed about 30%. The charging didn't move it upper, so i put the computer on battery mode, discharged to 20% and rebooted. After reboot battery was 4%, and still not charging. Then i followed an advice to discharge the battery while in BIOS, this didn't helped either.

The model is Lenovo V560. The official manual about changing battery suggests few obvious steps like unlock the battery via special switch, and then put in new battery.

The problems is that after accidently dropping my laptop one day, this switch falled away from it's place(by the way there are 2 switches, and both are).

So i think that the problem happen because i haven't connected battery properly, i think there are some battery internal stats, that should be reseted, but they didn't.
The Lenovo offers official power management software which has also feature about resetting battery, but it is not available for linux, *sigh*.

Is there any power management software for linux with such feature?

Are you sure the battery is not charging? Chances are it is just the indicator which is wrong. Did you cold reboot the machine? In any case, try to fully charge the battery and see how long it lasts.

I take it you completely removed Windows from that machine? Doesn't it have some kind of service more (Thinkvantage) you can enter. The service mode should do something useful, not restoring windows of course.

jlinkels

I can't be sure about is battery charging or not, but the kde's power manager shows that it is not (it was working with my old battery).

There is nor service mode or windows on machine, i removed them many time ago. Looks like the simplest way is to get windows installed back again =(.

I was referring to ThinkVantage as service mode. My old Lenovo Thinkpad has it. But apparently yours is different.

Sure you know whether your battery is charged. Leave it charging overnight, pull the plug the next morning and see how long it survives.

As far as I know monitoring your battery is in the OS, charging for sure is not. But talking to the battery monitor is the OS again. That might include resetting whatever battery state.

I had this on an Asus for some time, then it magically disappeared. You might want to check anything below /proc which has the word battery or power in it.

jlinkels

Hello.

Yes, there was a service mode, but i deleted about year ago.

I followed your advice, the laptop survived about a minute.
I also temporary installed windows (damn, how ugly is it!). And the same picture in it. 0%.
That probably means that battery is dead, right?

You can't be sure it is the battery which is dead. It can also be the charging circuit.

The only way to find out is to insert a known good battery.

jlinkels

I have an old good battery. It was charging/uncharging normally, but kde reported that it's capacity about 25%, so i decided to upgrade it, but without any success (this is the 2nd new battery i am trying, the first wasn't charging too, so i asked for return, may be i should find other shop).

Since you dropped your laptop, one possibility comes to mind. Most laptops have a third line in the middle of the power adapter plug which is the serial rom circuit. It is used to tell the laptop what type of power supply that is plugged in. If that line is disconnected the laptop will not know the power supply capabilities and will not let the battery recharge. The laptop will still run however. To check for this, go into the bios setup and see if it is reporting your power supply type and wattage. If it does, then this is not the problem and I would suspect a defective battery. If it does not then you have a soldering job on your hands with you laptops mobo power jack. Since I don't have a Lenovo I really can't comment on those switches. It is possible that they have something to do with the charging circuit and if they are no longer in the circuit then that would be another solder job. If you have a warranty then send it in for repairs. Otherwise you might have to replace the laptop.

If you have or could borrow for a few hours an electrical multimeter, that could help diagnose whether the battery is charged and whether the charging circuit is working.

If you can spare 25 dollars US or so, you could pick up a cheap one that should be plenty good for home use; they are awfully handy to have around. They are also very useful for DIY electrical home repairs.

Most of the time you can boot to the bios and check the status of the battery. I like testing that way when things are in question because it's OS independent.

Hello,
Sorry for not answering for a long time. Unfortunately, there is no stats about battery in bios.
I don't think that the problem is in OS - the windows shows the same. And don't think that the problem is in charger - it charges old battery well. I don't mind buying a multimeter, but since this is already a 2nd new battery, which is not working, i will probably ask for help in service center.
Thanks for help.

Thank you for your help.
The problem was in battery - it was not a real lenovo battery, but imitation of it.