Star1 Battery Bug

[vttay03]

So it seems I've been bitten by the star1 battery issue. The netbook is a little over a year old (got it in October '09) and I've been extremely religious in regards to charge/discharge habits b/c I constantly read of all the issues people have had with the first generation Starling battery. I never keep it plugged in and constantly cycle the battery throughout the week, never storing it with a charge greater than 60% or less than 30%. Symptoms are below:

1) It was fine until one night last week it started to take forever to charge, it seemed to happen all of the sudden

2) I've gone through the refresh procedure

3) I've been charging it while the computer itself is completely off and sometimes it will just quit - for example last night, it took me ~ 4 hours to get a 14% charge. When I woke up this morning, the battery light was off indicating it had charged fully but when I started the computer it only indicated a 40% charge

4) Charging the computer while powered seems to be a lost cause as the rate appears to be something ridiculous like 1% every 30 minutes

5) The discharge cycle still seems pretty decent - I finally got a full charge the other night, and it took somewhere on the order of 3 hours to fully discharge

I installed ACPI awhile back to get a more accurate reading on the battery charge since the gnome panel indicator has always given me issues. ACPI reports that on the last charge the battery is still charging to 87% of its full capability, which means that I've been taking good care of it and it SHOULD still have plenty of life left. I don't think this has anything to do with a kernel or Ubuntu itself because it still exhibits this behavior with the computer completely powered off, meaning it should be isolated to either the battery or AC adapter. However, I'm open to any suggestions as I love my Starling and am at a loss for ideas right now...suggestions anyone?

[isantop]

Go ahead and power off the computer. Remove both the battery and the Power Cord, then let everything sit until it's at room temperature, or about half an hour. Then, plug everything back in and see if that helps.

[vttay03]

Doesn't seem to have had much of an effect. Went from 40% to 45% in about an hour.

[isantop]

This sounds like a hardware issue to me. Please send us an email at support...at...system76...dot...com.

Alternatively, you could try a new battery. You can purchase them from here: http://www.system76.com/product_info...products_id=68

[macabrem]

vttay03,

I'm curious how you resolve this. I have the exact same problem, and my computer was purchased about the same time (Sept. 09). I took pretty good care of the battery, but maybe not as meticulously as you did.

isantop,

Would there be any point in me also emailing you guys, since I don't think my Starling is under any kind of warranty anymore?

[vttay03]

I was told the best thing to do was buy a new battery. Unfortunately, I don't agree with this but there's not a whole lot I can do since I'm out of warranty. My argument is that I could buy a new battery and in a year's time go through the same exact problem again, meaning I have to spend another $100 to fix it.

So in short, chances are I won't be doing anything b/c $100 puts me almost a 1/3 of the way to a brand new netbook. I think I'll have to manage with just AC power for awhile.

[vttay03]

Of course one other thing I should mention is that I don't have any type of test platform, which makes me that much more hesitant to just buy a new battery. If someone knows of any Linux utilities which could somehow measure the charge/discharge cycle of a battery, or provide some insight as to the overall health, that would be useful. This way I'd know for sure if it was the battery instead of having to blindly purchase a battery without knowing if it's really the culprit.

[macabrem]

I was told the best thing to do was buy a new battery. Unfortunately, I don't agree with this but there's not a whole lot I can do since I'm out of warranty. My argument is that I could buy a new battery and in a year's time go through the same exact problem again, meaning I have to spend another $100 to fix it.

So in short, chances are I won't be doing anything b/c $100 puts me almost a 1/3 of the way to a brand new netbook. I think I'll have to manage with just AC power for awhile.

I figured they would just suggest to buy a new battery.

I agree with what you said - it just isn't worth 1/3 of the price of a new netbook to have a new battery.

I guess you get what you pay for. I chose this netbook to have a little more RAM for a cheaper price compared to one you could get somewhere else with a non linux OS installed - only to be plagued with a bad battery, bad wireless card, and a failing computer that I had to already send back once for a repair while under warranty.

No disrespect to System 76 - they have had wonderful customer service and all that, but I just wouldn't purchase their cheapest product again in the near future.