[Bug 58061] hp nx7010 thinks the battery is flat, hibernates when power is removed

[Martin Pool]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: linux-image-2.6.15-26-686

I have an hp compaq nx7010 which generally works well in Dapper.
Hibernate and sleep both work.

However, recent kernels seem to have a bug where it will sometimes read
the battery as almost empty, even when it's not.   A typical scenario is
this: the machine has been plugged in for several hours and the battery
should be full.  (The led indicates it's been charging.)  Then I unplug
the machine, and a gnome notification pops up saying either "warning,
you have only 3 minutes power (100%) left", or "warning, the battery is
almost flat and the machine will now suspend."  (That's not word-for-
word.)

This is highly annoying because once hibernation starts there is
apparently no way to stop it, and it takes several minutes to hibernate
and come back up.  (As a separate issue, it would be good if the user
got a chance to cancel, shutdown, or plug the power back in: "the
machine will hibernate in 20...19...18...").

I'm fairly sure the battery is not actually flat because the power led
is not blinking orange, and the battery life is generally very good.
Also the fact that it thinks the battery is 100% charged but also going
to run out in 3 minutes seems suspicious.  Perhaps it's extrapolating
power use wrongly.

Another failure mode can happen where the machine just sees the battery
as flat but does not shut down.  When it's in this state, using the
'acpi' command shows no battery information.

The problem is not completely reproducible but does happen quite often.
I think it becomes more common if I've already suspended & resumed since
the last cold boot.

I don't think this happened in earlier kernels in the dapper release but
I haven't gone back to test.  I can if you want.

** Affects: linux-source-2.6.15 (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Untriaged
         Status: Unconfirmed

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hp nx7010 thinks the battery is flat, hibernates when power is removed
https://launchpad.net/bugs/58061