'Laptop Battery Discharging' while on AC power' and wireless adapter not always on??

[swoody]

Well, I'm fixing up an old laptop for my mom to use, and I've encountered a couple problems.

1) The laptop didn't have a battery when I installed Ubuntu, but I bought a battery, and popped it in. When I fist insert the battery it shows:
"Computer is running on AC power - Laptop battery charging (100%)"

Then after a couple seconds - while still plugged in - it will go to:
"Computer is running on AC power - Laptop battery discharging"

What is going on here? How can I make it display correctly when the adapter is plugged in?

2) For some reason the wireless card isn't always turned on when the computer boots up. When it doesn't activate, I have to push the Wireless button on the laptop to get it to activate the wireless card. The light for the wireless card is ALWAYS on after booting, so you can't tell whether it's actually enabled or not. One other thing I've noticed is that when the computer has been running for a while, the same wireless light will randomly turn off and come back on. This has no affect on the wireless connectivity, though.

The computer's running 8.10 (with all updates), WICD, Broadcom B43 Wireless Driver, and a Broadcom BCM4306 (rev. 3) adapter. ANY and all help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance

[swoody]

Nobody has any ideas yet?

[skriefal]

That sounds like a bad battery. You need to be very, very careful when purchasing third-party batteries. Bad third-party batteries are much more common than good third-party batteries, unfortunately.

[swoody]

That sounds like a bad battery. You need to be very, very careful when purchasing third-party batteries. Bad third-party batteries are much more common than good third-party batteries, unfortunately.

Well the battery holds a 2 hour charge. And it's a HP battery, not some 3rd party one.