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I'm running Kubuntu 14.04.1 LTS AMD64 on my Dell Inspiron 14" 7437; it is a fresh and fully updated installation.

What happens when I turn on my PC without the power cord attached is that KDE systray battery icon shows the battery as "not present" even though it certanly is; then if I try to connect the power adapter, it suddenly realizes about the battery and correctly displays its charge level, at that point I can disconnect the adapter and it will keep showing the correct info about the battery levels and everything ...

So, the thing is that I just can't boot my PC without connecting the power adapter but that's quite annoying when I am not home or if I have no power outlet available around me because I can't know my battery charge level...

How do I fix this ?

Paul.87
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1 Answers1

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I've looked things up a little bit more and couldn't really find the exact solution matching my problem on a Dell-Laptop but I've read of some people having similar problems with toshiba's batteries and finally found a way to get mine correctly detected. All I needed to do was add a kernel parameter at pc-startup.

To do this follow these steps:

  1. type in a terminal -> sudo nano /etc/default/grub
  2. locate this line -> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
  3. add acpi_osi=Linux param -> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=Linux"
  4. save and exit the editor
  5. update grub -> sudo update-grub
  6. right click the KDE system tray and check "battery monitor" in the additional items (you can also configure it to show on "auto" mode or "always"; auto shows it only when the pc is running on battery)
  7. reboot

Notes:

  • what acpi_osi=Linux does is telling the BIOS that the running O.S. is/will be linux, just that
  • step6 was needed because that item didn't get included by default since the system thought no battery was available

Conclusions:

Adding acpi_osi=Linux to the kernel parameters perfectly fixes my battery detection problem, if you have the exact same laptop model as mine it will surely work for you too; it might also work for the other Inspirons laptops belonging to the 7000 serie as well.

Hope this answer can help.

Paul.87
  • 61