battery status indicator not working with dell inspiron
 

,
I have installed mandrake 9.1 on my dell inspiron 2600 and all working fine but for one thing:-(

I am using GNOME desktop and I found out that they have Battery Charge Monitor utility
to show battery status.I have added it to my system tray but some how it does not work.It always shows me the battery status as 'Battery not present' even though I have the battery fully changed.I disconnected the laptop from power to check if then the battery monitor detects the battery, but no use.
I tried to configure the utility but the documentation says that it will detect the battery automatically.
Do I need to install something to make it work?
regards,
Shirish

I believe you have to go into the Mandrake Control center, choose boot, then boot options, once you open that screen put a check mark in the box that says use ACPI, reboot and your battery monitor should work.

PS. I'm not sure of the names for sure in the control center but when I did try Mandrake 9.1 this is what I did to get the battery monitor to work for my Dell Inspiron 2650.

Hi,
thanks for the reply.
I checked the settings in mandrake control center/boot/boot drake and as you said,the ACPI is already checked.

So is there any thing else I need to configure?
regards,
Shirish

Well IF your computer uses acpi try this:

open a console:
$su
[enter password]
#gedit &

With gedit open /etc/lilo.conf

find the line with append=" bla bla bla acpi=on"

change it if needed to acpi=on (for MDK9.1 only) MDK9.2 its usually acpi=ht

I use 9.2 and to get mine working its: acpi=on nolapic

save and exit out of gedit

in the same terminal:
#/sbin/lilo -v

then:
#urpmi acpi

After that open your MCC check under system? and choose services. See if acpi is there and checked for startup on boot.

Reboot Computer.

Hi,
Thanks for the reply.I got it working by following the steps you mentioned.(I used vi to edit lilo.conf though :-(( ).
But now i have another problem.I am not sure if it is a problem or not.Now when i start computer, i can see the battery status indicator on task bar and it shows battery power 100%.But if i take my mouse cursor over the power plug symbol(the one next to battery symbol), i see a message "system is running on battery power."But i am connected to the power supply.Is this just a wrong status message or this really means that the laptop is running on battery and is not able to recognize the connection to Power supply.

anybody else using this battery status indicator applet?what do u see ?

regards,
shirish

That was what my laptop would do, it actually is running on AC power, this didn't get fixed until I switched to Fedora which included acpi and now everything works except for stand-by but I haven't fiddled much with this since I never use standby anyway.

I had a similar problem using an Inspiron 5150 and Mandrake 9.2. If your using a non pcmcia network card (which I assume you are using a builtin card) you might want to try stopping the pcmcia service. 9.2 has some problems with battstat with pcmcia enabled. Hope this helps.?

Hi,
Thanks for the advice.I will try that now.But i am on mandrake 9.1 .Also will stoping the pcmcia service affect anything else?Any device that is using this??Is it safe to do so ? :-((

But my main question is..Is my laptop using battery all the time when booted in linux,even if it is connected to power?Or the problem i am experiencing(getting tool tip message "system is running on battery power." even when connected to power) has more to do with the battery status applet of gnome..Just the message is wrong but the laptop is actually using power from supply.

It will be getting power from AC when plugged in.

:)