Power Meter Doesn't Show Estimated Time Remaining For My Battery?

G

Guest

Like the question says. I have three Windows XP laptops: a Gateway and a
Toshiba both show estimated battery life remaining in hours and minutes both
on the power meter, and in the tooltip when I hover the mouse over the
battery icon in the system tray.

However, on my new Alienware laptop, it does not. I only get percent
remaining, not time.

Two questions:
1) Why? What is different between the XP ony my Alienware versus the XP on
my Toshiba and my Gateway?
2) How do I fix this problem?
 
S

S.Sengupta

As your laptop is a new one so it must be under warranty.Best option is
to contact the Alienware Support.

regards,
S.Sengupta[MS-MVP]
 
G

Guest

Thanks, I've already asked them, and they haven't been helpful at all.

Twice I've told them that the time remaining is not on the power meter, and
twice they've told me to look at the power meter to find the time remaining.
Not exactly the best tech support I've ever seen. :(

I was hoping that this was a simple glitch, like a setting somewhere, or a
registry key, but I googled for it and only found 2 other people on the
planet who have this problem, and no answers. I guess it's a hardware problem.

S.Sengupta said:
As your laptop is a new one so it must be under warranty.Best option is
to contact the Alienware Support.

regards,
S.Sengupta[MS-MVP]

Iain said:
Like the question says. I have three Windows XP laptops: a Gateway and a
Toshiba both show estimated battery life remaining in hours and minutes both
on the power meter, and in the tooltip when I hover the mouse over the
battery icon in the system tray.

However, on my new Alienware laptop, it does not. I only get percent
remaining, not time.

Two questions:
1) Why? What is different between the XP ony my Alienware versus the XP on
my Toshiba and my Gateway?
2) How do I fix this problem?
 
G

Glen

I dont have a laptop to look at but what options are there on each of the
three laptops you have? Have a look on each and see if you can see the
difference on the power options control panel. Its hard to think of a
hardware cause. I would say a windows setting/reg key myself.
--
Please repost if you find the fault

Glen P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Iain McCracken said:
Thanks, I've already asked them, and they haven't been helpful at all.

Twice I've told them that the time remaining is not on the power meter,
and
twice they've told me to look at the power meter to find the time
remaining.
Not exactly the best tech support I've ever seen. :(

I was hoping that this was a simple glitch, like a setting somewhere, or a
registry key, but I googled for it and only found 2 other people on the
planet who have this problem, and no answers. I guess it's a hardware
problem.

S.Sengupta said:
As your laptop is a new one so it must be under warranty.Best option is
to contact the Alienware Support.

regards,
S.Sengupta[MS-MVP]

Iain said:
Like the question says. I have three Windows XP laptops: a Gateway and
a
Toshiba both show estimated battery life remaining in hours and minutes
both
on the power meter, and in the tooltip when I hover the mouse over the
battery icon in the system tray.

However, on my new Alienware laptop, it does not. I only get percent
remaining, not time.

Two questions:
1) Why? What is different between the XP ony my Alienware versus the XP
on
my Toshiba and my Gateway?
2) How do I fix this problem?
 
G

Guest

The Alienware and the Gateway both have the standard Windows power management
thing. The Toshiba has the Toshiba power management thing.

I can't find any option anywhere in either power management thing that would
turn off the "total time remaining" line in the power meter. I have also
searched the entire registry for entries with "battery" and "power meter" in
the name or data, and can't find anything that looks even vaguely promising.

The only clue I've found was looking at the battery in perfmon. It reports a
discharge rate of 0x80000000, which makes no sense.
 
R

R. McCarty

It may not be related to vendor support software, but the Battery
driver in use. Which Chipset does the PC use ?
 
G

Guest

The motherboard is a Clevo D900K, which uses the VIA K8T890 north and VT8237A
southbridge.

I have upgraded the VIA chipset driver, the AMD CPU driver, and the nVidia
driver from the Alienware website. No joy. Perfmon still reports a discharge
rate of 0x80000000 no matter what, and a charge rate of 0. My other computers
show reasonable numbers there, which vary appropriately with system load and
whether the AC is plugged in or not.
 
R

Ryan

I have the same problem. It's because your battery is not a "smart" battery.
There apparently is something that the battery has to do to make this work.
Most personal laptops do not have such a feature.

There's no other way to fix it besides using a 3rd party battery calculator.
I use Mobile Meter.


Glen said:
I dont have a laptop to look at but what options are there on each of the
three laptops you have? Have a look on each and see if you can see the
difference on the power options control panel. Its hard to think of a
hardware cause. I would say a windows setting/reg key myself.
--
Please repost if you find the fault

Glen P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Iain McCracken said:
Thanks, I've already asked them, and they haven't been helpful at all.

Twice I've told them that the time remaining is not on the power meter,
and
twice they've told me to look at the power meter to find the time
remaining.
Not exactly the best tech support I've ever seen. :(

I was hoping that this was a simple glitch, like a setting somewhere, or
a
registry key, but I googled for it and only found 2 other people on the
planet who have this problem, and no answers. I guess it's a hardware
problem.

S.Sengupta said:
As your laptop is a new one so it must be under warranty.Best option is
to contact the Alienware Support.

regards,
S.Sengupta[MS-MVP]

Iain McCracken wrote:
Like the question says. I have three Windows XP laptops: a Gateway and
a
Toshiba both show estimated battery life remaining in hours and
minutes both
on the power meter, and in the tooltip when I hover the mouse over the
battery icon in the system tray.

However, on my new Alienware laptop, it does not. I only get percent
remaining, not time.

Two questions:
1) Why? What is different between the XP ony my Alienware versus the
XP on
my Toshiba and my Gateway?
2) How do I fix this problem?
 
G

Guest

What? I have never never never never seen a laptop that doesn't report the
battery time remaining in the power meter. A *standard* laptop battery
reports: max charge in mAh, current charge in mAh, current voltage in V, and
charge/discharge rate in W, as well as chemistry and other assorted stuff.
This has been the norm for several years now. Like since the middle 1990's.

What do you mean "most personal laptops don't have this feature"? Maybe if
they're based on a 386 or a NEC V20 and run Windows 3.1.

Both Windows and Mobile Meter use the charge level, discharge rate, and
voltage to calculate the estimated time remaining.

The battery in my Alienware does not report the charge/discharge rate, even
though it reports everything else.

Hence Windows cannot estimate the time remaining to display it in the power
meter.

Mobile Meter doesn't work, either, because it requires this same information
to do its job.

So... You don't have the same problem because Mobile Meter works for you.
You then in fact do have what you call a "smart" battery, otherwise MM would
not work.
 

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