Bug 144692

cc'ing Holger as he might want to comment this.

The remaining battery time comes from hal, so maybe its calculation has to be adjusted a little bit. Can you please post the output of 'lshal | grep battery'?

Here's the requested output (grep -C5 to make it complete).

When querying this, power was not plugged in and the laptop freshly booted with battery fully loaded.

udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_BAT1'
  battery.remaining_time = 221  (0xdd)  (int)
  info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_BAT1'  (string)
  linux.hotplug_type = 4  (0x4)  (int)
  battery.charge_level.percentage = 98  (0x62)  (int)
  battery.charge_level.rate = 0  (0x0)  (int)
  battery.charge_level.last_full = 53916928  (0x336b500)  (int)
  battery.charge_level.current = 53082432  (0x329f940)  (int)
  battery.voltage.current = 14144  (0x3740)  (int)
  battery.reporting.rate = 0  (0x0)  (int)
  battery.reporting.current = 3753  (0xea9)  (int)
  battery.charge_level.capacity_state = 'ok'  (string)
  battery.rechargeable.is_discharging = true  (bool)
  battery.rechargeable.is_charging = false  (bool)
  battery.is_rechargeable = true  (bool)
  battery.charge_level.unit = 'mWh'  (string)
  battery.charge_level.granularity_2 = 370000  (0x5a550)  (int)
  battery.charge_level.granularity_1 = 148000  (0x24220)  (int)
  battery.charge_level.low = 1480000  (0x169540)  (int)
  battery.charge_level.warning = 3700000  (0x387520)  (int)
  battery.charge_level.design = 65120000  (0x3e1a700)  (int)
  battery.voltage.design = 14800  (0x39d0)  (int)
  battery.voltage.unit = 'mV'  (string)
  battery.reporting.granularity_2 = 25  (0x19)  (int)
  battery.reporting.granularity_1 = 10  (0xa)  (int)
  battery.reporting.low = 100  (0x64)  (int)
  battery.reporting.warning = 250  (0xfa)  (int)
  battery.reporting.design = 4400  (0x1130)  (int)
  battery.reporting.last_full = 3812  (0xee4)  (int)
  battery.reporting.unit = 'mAh'  (string)
  battery.technology = 'LION'  (string)
  battery.model = '03ZG'  (string)
  battery.vendor = 'SANYO'  (string)
  battery.present = true  (bool)
  info.capabilities = {'battery'} (string list)
  info.category = 'battery'  (string)
  battery.type = 'primary'  (string)
  info.product = 'Battery Bay'  (string)
  info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer'  (string)
  linux.acpi_type = 0  (0x0)  (int)
  linux.acpi_path = '/proc/acpi/battery/BAT1'  (string)

udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_BAT2'
  info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_BAT2'  (string)
  linux.hotplug_type = 4  (0x4)  (int)
  battery.present = false  (bool)
  info.capabilities = {'battery'} (string list)
  info.category = 'battery'  (string)
  battery.type = 'primary'  (string)
  info.product = 'Battery Bay'  (string)
  info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer'  (string)
  linux.acpi_type = 0  (0x0)  (int)
  linux.acpi_path = '/proc/acpi/battery/BAT2'  (string)

Danny, Holger: Can we fix this for beta4?

There were some fixes within the library for Beta3. I daubt that it will fix that problem but nevertheless it would be good to test again with beta3. Does powersave -b show the same pessimistic results?

I'm not sure if there is a way to fix this. The battery report no present rate, in this case HAL need to guess the rate and this is not a 100% correct algorithm. 

Btw. Does your machine send ACPI Battery events? Could you start 'lshal --monitor', remove the AC adapter and wait 20 minutes and attacht the output of lshal --monitor ? 

Created attachment 66025 [details]
lshat and powersave -B output

I added som debug prinf to libpower/battery.c (powersave-0.11.6) and it SEEMS some part of the problem on MY laptop (dell inspiron 8200) is that it halfs (2 batt bays, one empty) the remaining time...since the number of "valid_batteries" is 2! Should be 1. Other than that it SEEMS that  the polled value of /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1 is really weird. Plugged in "remaining capacity" is 65120 mWh, AS SOON as it gets unplugged that drops to 14280 mWh. This has nothing to do with powersave though..??

The library implementation got fixed already (bug #145959). If you like you can try the new packages from ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/hmacht/10.1/ , but I would be suprised if this solves your problem.

There is no way to fix this problem. You have a broken ACPI-Battery as you can see here:
  battery.reporting.rate = 25502  (0x639e)  (int)
  battery.reporting.current = 14220  (0x378c)  (int)

The battery reports sometimes a much to high current rate, because of this hal can't compute a correct value for time (percentage should work correct):

 ((double) 14220 / (double) 25502) * 60 * 60 = 2007

--> battery.remaining_time = 2007  (0x7d7)

I see currently no way to fix this.

ok, I tested Holgers 0.11.8-1 and it solved the "50% charged" problem (with 2 batt bays, one occupied)! The "remaining_time" is as Danny says, a problem with the batt/acpi implementation (thank you Dell...(Sony?)). As far as I am concerned Holgers 0.11.8-1 is a winner! Thanks!! For *me* the *case is closed* (I am not the submitter of the original bug, nor the owner...so.....).