ACPI for Laptops (battery status...)

gelbasack · n00b Joined: 11 Mar 2004 Posts: 19 Location: Austria

Anyone got ACPI working on a laptop so the battery status is shown in the taskbar?

I compiled everything concerning ACPI in the kernel. Well, i got an interface /proc/acpi/* where I see stuff like temperature. But the folders battery and acadaptor are empty

KDE says I got a partial ACPI installation. But got no idea what else I should compile in the kernel. There's nothing left I think. Didn't find anything else concerning ACPI than in Advanced Power Management section.
Also installed adpid and run it in default runlevel but didn't change anything.

Akhouk

shakayoda · n00b Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 25

A bit late, but I'm pretty sure you configured your kernel with ac_adapter as module. You need to modprobe ac in order to have battery state.

nzyme · n00b Joined: 26 Oct 2004 Posts: 13

here it says something like "file in use" when doeing cat /proc/acpi/batterystatus (somethin like that).

shakayoda · n00b Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 25

Okay. Let's start with the beginning then. Which kernel are you using? Can you send your config (the part about performance would do it). Which modules did you load? (check with lsmod).

moonlight · Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 11:00 pm Post subject:

modprobe ac
modprobe battery

this should do the trick.

Cheers Moonlight

ryceck · Apprentice Joined: 13 Jan 2004 Posts: 195

Got an armada e500
Just enabled ACPI, everything in kernel (not fond of modules for things that are used constantly) and it works like a charm. Klaptop shows everything perfectly and my Gkrellm works too...

Here is my kernel config regarding ACPI:

jonasmattsson · Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2004 8:43 am Post subject:

I've got a related problem. this is how my battery state has ben the last 30 minutes now.

Longfield · Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:53 pm Post subject:

Longfield · Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 8:15 am Post subject:

noone has an idea about the "fixed" battery info with acpi support in kernel and not in modules ?

may that be in relationship with hotplug <-> coldplug changes ? may it better work if i compile acpi support as module ?

quiver

Bump!

This is my exact problem too, I'm running 2.6.10 with acpid compiled and run at boot time, and unplugging and replugging in the AC adapter does cause an update and XFCE's panel battery status indicator updates fine. But any other time, checking the panel's indicator reports the same charge % and time (obviously it can't calculate the time correctly yet) as it did when last I looked... It's not the XFCE panel plugin because running

Earthwings · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 9:18 am Post subject:

Please use a recent kernel 2.6.10 to be sure the problem is not already fixed. Can you post the output of dmesg | grep -i acpi (clean boot, not swsusp)? There's something similar in http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3974 where it works on a 2.4.x kernel. If you've got one around, please test with that, too.

quiver · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject:

As requested (pulled from a non swsusp 2.6.10 r2 kernel, I'm afraid I don't have a 2.4 kernel handy);

Earthwings · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:21 pm Post subject:

What happens if you unload and reload the battery module? Is it updated afterwards?

liber! · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 7:50 pm Post subject:

Sometimes your dsdt table is not right (certainly if it's compiled with Microsoft MSFT aml compiler). In this thread you learn to check and correct the dsdt: HOWTO: Fix Common ACPI Problems (DSDT, ECDT, etc.)

I see from the dmesg that you use a MSFT compiled dsdt...

hiroki · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 8:20 pm Post subject:

just a short question(in general).

does a DSDT change when RAM is upgraded? I had a fully working laptop (with 512 MB DDR), i downloaded an already fixed DSDT and it simply worked. in particular: the system showed the correct battery status.

But then (some months ago) I upgraded to 768 MB DDR RAM. But then the DSDT [used as kernel option: initrd DSDT] doesn't work anymore. there are lots of ACPI errors etc. and the battery isn't recognized anymore.

fixing the DSDT by myself seems impossible to me, because there are error messages i have no idea how to fix them. those errors are not mentioned in the "official" HOWTO either.

what can be done? isit normal, that the DSDT changes when upgrading RAM?

thx,

grtz,

hiroki

quiver · Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 12:45 pm Post subject:

Ok, here's where I'm at...

I did go through the howto you posted Nathan (thanks!), and found no errors and five warnings when I recompiled the DSDT (plus 186 optimizations!). I fixed one of the warnings as per the howto's linked warnings reference, though I still get four. I'm not sure how dire these are (being warnings rather than errors), so you tell me...

quiver · Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 2:31 pm Post subject:

Nope, my dsdt.dsl file definitely has no OS specific features. I'm stumped!

quiver · Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 5:42 am Post subject:

Unloading and reloading the battery module (had to modularize it in the kernel first) doesn't render any change in acpi's battery state unfortunately.

Any more ideas?

rukinhas · n00b Joined: 12 Jan 2005 Posts: 12

hi ppl.

the problem is descibed in the title. it only shows the values that were real when the laptop starts,
it's never updated.

i have acpid instaled and i compiled the kernel with all acpi options marked as compiled in kernel (not modules)

does anyone have any idea what's happening

Earthwings · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:06 am Post subject:

Merged on post.

quiver · Posted: Sat May 28, 2005 2:44 pm Post subject: Bump!

Anyone found a solution for this pain-in-the-rear-end problem yet? I'd be a lot more inspired to actually use my laptop for it's intended purpose, to operate in a location where power isn't available, if only I could tell how much power it actually has leftover!

Some manner of solution or next-step would be great.

Thanks

tbart · Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2005 3:19 pm Post subject:

Same with me. No solutions. But maybe some sort of trackdown...

Batterydisplay worked flawlessly with some kernel <2.6.10 and devfs, no hotplug, no coldplug

i then updated to 2.6.10 and now I'm on some 2.6.11, using udev, hotplug, coldplug.

battery doesn't update anymore since that change.

i guess we can say for sure that DSDT tables are not the problem (I didn't change anything but the above mentioned)

interestingly enough, changing display brightness (this is OS independent... hardware keys - still i guess they're using ACPI for it) sometimes produce an update in my batterystatus...

maybe this information helps some guru?
should i try to read out what ACPIevents those keys produce so we can somehow find out what update or sth they send..?

please instruct me, i'm willing to help (as mentioned: a laptop w/o working battery-display somehow doesn't make me happy..)

th
_________________
Microsoft is not the answer.
Microsoft is the question, and the answer is no.

quiver · Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 1:20 am Post subject: Bump

Bump!

Eight months since my last post on here and still no info... :S

Anybody?

Colonel Sanders · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2005 Posts: 2