Ubuntu 12.04 strange internal battery capacity error

Question

I recently bought a MSI-X370 laptop with ATI graphics and wiped Windows and replaced with Ubuntu 12.04.

Now, up until my upgrade from beta 2 to the first stable Ubuntu 12.04 release, I didn't have problems with this.

This is the problem: ACPI knows that my battery capacity is 4400mAh, but only randomly charges fully ever. Otherwise, it charges to around 86%, and I get a orange light blinking on the laptop, and my acpi -V says that I'm charged to 100%. The strange thing is, that I do a cat info again, and it is still not charged to capacity. Why the discrepancy? Did something change in acpi, upower, gnome-power-manager? I am lost, and no one seems to want to assist.

cat info: /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1$ cat ./info present: yes design capacity: 4300 mAh last full capacity: 4053 mAh battery technology: rechargeable design voltage: 14800 mV design capacity warning: 0 mAh design capacity low: 0 mAh cycle count: 0 capacity granularity 1: 1 mAh capacity granularity 2: 1 mAh model number: ?MODEL

serial number:

battery type: LION

OEM info: ?CUSTOMER

I am standing by for anyone's ideas

Thanks

Answer 1

Batteries lose capacity as they age. Even if they are not used, ie they are sitting on the shelf in a warehouse.

If the capacity you are seeing is about 85% of the design capacity I'd say that is not too bad for a battery with a year or so under its belt (though normally on a brand new battery you'd expect that to be a good amount higher).

Edit: given that this particular battery is brand new, and that the capacity seems to be dropping too fast, there may be a fault with the battery.

It is possible for a battery capacity to be, say 4400mAh by design, but to actually be 4480mAh when brand new, then drop to 3950mAh within the first year and a half. At any time, however, if you charge the battery fully to that amount, it should be reported as 100% charged (or 98%+, depending on the aggressivity of the charger), even if the capacity of the battery is only 89% that of the battery's design capacity. This is because the percentage charged should be reported as a percentage of actual capacity rather than design capacity.

At any rate, it isn't an Ubuntu issue. I mean, how much the charger charges the battery, when it stops charging, and how much the battery is capable of storing, isn't. How it's reported in Ubuntu might be, however. If you have reason to suspect that Ubuntu is actually reporting the battery capacity incorrectly, notwithstanding what I said above, then that is entirely possible.

Note too that all those stats the battery keeps are a best guess, and they are somewhat limited in their ability to accurately measure the amount of charge going in and out.

This answer may not have actually solved your problem buy hopefully it was still somewhat useful.

Answer 2

Flashing orange indicates there is a problem with the battery, http://forum-en.msi.com/faq/article/battery-led-is-blinking-orange

Blinking orange is battery failure, http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=125647.0

It may still be under warranty since is has been only 2 months, contact MSI about a replacement. If it is not covered by warranty you should buy a new battery.

Answer 3

I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to this discussion, as it led me to a couple of ideas that I used when testing the charging method for this laptop. I am marking this solved only because I was able to get the battery to charge to 100% again... HOWEVER, I was unable to get the the root of the problem, and I doubt that this fix will work on other laptops. What I discovered regarding the trickle charge (thanks mateo and neon_overload) was that the energy provided during the time that the computer was on was ineffective in charging the battery, presumably because too much power was being provided to the system. When the battery is above 90% charge, there seems to be a safety mechanism built in that keeps the battery from charging too much, and it was being activated any time I tried to charge the laptop from above the measured 90%. To fix this, I drained the battery to 80% (of the measured capacity, not design capacity), and pulled the battery while the system was on. I then powered the system down and plugged the battery back in. This made the system avoid trickle charging and also avoid the safety mechanism that is built in. 20 minutes later the orange flashing light that I had been seeing disappeared, and the white charging light turned off, indicating that the battery had charged fully.
Thanks again for all of your help guys, it's much appreciated.

linux_RRT