Hi Everybody,
I've recently had an old Compaq M700 Laptop ( P3 600Mhz with 192 Mo ) with a debian distro installed on it. ( gnome is used)
Everything is fine except the pc is not working at all when Power cable is unplugged, so it is necessary to re-calibrate it.

How is it possible to process a calibration under linux ?

I don't know much about APIC and that kind of stuff, but reading LQ i thought it could be a good idea to post my dmesg result as follows

Linux version 2.4.27-2-386 (horms@tabatha.lab.ultramonkey.org) (gcc version 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-13)) #1 Wed Aug 17 09:33:35 UTC 2005
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000000bff0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000bff0000 - 000000000bff3800 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 000000000bff3800 - 000000000c000000 (ACPI NVS)
191MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 49136
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 45040 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 COMPAQ ) @ 0x000f9970
ACPI: RSDT (v001 COMPAQ RSDB130 0x00000001 CPQ 0x00000001) @ 0x0bff4800
ACPI: FADT (v001 COMPAQ CPQB10F 0x20020315 CPQ 0x00000001) @ 0x0bff4828
ACPI: DSDT (v001 COMPAQ ARMADAE7 0x00010000 MSFT 0x0100000c) @ 0x00000000
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda1 ro
Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- reenabling.
Could not enable APIC!
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 497.832 MHz processor.

laptop:/home/pierre# dmesg | grep ACPI
BIOS-e820: 000000000bff3800 - 000000000c000000 (ACPI NVS)
ACPI: RSDP (v000 COMPAQ ) @ 0x000f9970
ACPI: RSDT (v001 COMPAQ RSDB130 0x00000001 CPQ 0x00000001) @ 0x0bff4800
ACPI: FADT (v001 COMPAQ CPQB10F 0x20020315 CPQ 0x00000001) @ 0x0bff4828
ACPI: DSDT (v001 COMPAQ ARMADAE7 0x00010000 MSFT 0x0100000c) @ 0x00000000
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040326
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
PCI: ACPI tables contain no PCI IRQ routing entries

Apparently APIC cannot start on my laptop, any idea on how to enable it ? ( i don't have any APIC Option on BIOS )
I don't know if this is related but processor speed is not the right one as a 600Mhz is shown is BIOS.

What's the best way to solve this problem ? ( ACPI Patch, New kernel ? )

Thanks in advance for helping me understand this.

Pierre

Ok, ACPI and APIC are two vastly different technologies. That being said, what happens to the system when you unplug the AC adapter? It shouldn't cause any major change unless you're using speedstep or something similar.

I think acpi is a kind of new. I am not sure ACPI works on old hardware. I recommedd to read documentation in kernel source file.

I would turn off acpi off, and turn apm on.

Thanks for replying.

Sorry for mistakes about ACPI and APIC, i'm not familiar with that.

Well when AC Adapter is unplugged, pc shut down immediately. Battery could be down but i was said that it has to be recalibrate. ( A friend of mine has got this option within a Compaq Application )

Following your instructions, i've tried to install APM and turn it on. ( ACPI was turned off )
I've installed a battery monitor to check what happens and it shows always a half charged battery. No Calibrating options available.
( I've used battery monitor applications on Gnome and Kde to check the result on both environment. )

I've tried to install a new 2.6 kernel using apt-get install, but nothing relevant.

Does that mean that the battery is Out Of Service ?

Regards,

pierre

To be honest, I've never heard of 'calibrating' the battery. I've heard of calibrating the battery monitor, but that is just intended to make the "time left" value more accurate. I'm not aware of any condition where a computer with a good battery would immediately shut down on removal of AC power.

Hi,

One step ahead.

But, I have never had my penguin lived on Dell.

I had to play around with kernel options.

You also need apmd.

By the way, I somewhat think your battery is dead.

I understand that "calibrate battery" means that full charge then full discharge. (I read this i-book manual)

Thanks everybody. I'm afraid this post is a real newbie one as i thought there could be a magic way to solve my trouble.

Apparently, on new laptop computers, calibrating options are avalaible in BIOS. But on a M700, you must download a microsoft applications in order to do it. ( Compaq Power Management )
Obviously, this hasn't been developped for nux.

As you said kaz2100, i'm afraid my battery is dead.
Will buy a new one then.

Cheers

Pierre