Acer Timeline 3810T

[miegiel]

I'm afraid but Ubuntu Linux kills my battery and this is fact 0,5 mW capacity reducing each time I use all battery till automatic shutdown. Crap!

I have 10.04 with 2.6.32 kernel. The same problem appeared with 9.10

You can't blame that on linux. It's normal for lithium batteries to loose capacity over time. They even loose capacity while lying on the shelf. They loose capacity faster when they're completely full or completely empty, at 40-50% they loose the least capacity over time. On the up side they don't age faster when you use them a lot. And they don't have a "memory", so you don't need to fully discharge and fully charge the battery to prevent capacity loss.

That's why I bought a laptop with a 6-8h battery life while I only really need 4h. After about 2 years the battery's capacity will be almost useless, though with a energy efficient laptop you might still get 1h of battery life.

[almozavr]

You can't blame that on linux. It's normal for lithium batteries to loose capacity over time. They even loose capacity while lying on the shelf. They loose capacity faster when they're completely full or completely empty, at 40-50% they loose the least capacity over time. On the up side they don't age faster when you use them a lot. And they don't have a "memory", so you don't need to fully discharge and fully charge the battery to prevent capacity loss.

That's why I bought a laptop with a 6-8h battery life while I only really need 4h. After about 2 years the battery's capacity will be almost useless, though with a energy efficient laptop you might still get 1h of battery life.

Yeap, it's understood. BUT!

Battery capacity decreasing started right after using Ubuntu. It APPEARED 3 times in a row when I worked on Ubuntu (during 2 days I had 3 discharging/charging cycles). Till that moment I used Win 7 and had no surges with battery capacity. Now I've got -0.5 mW every time I use my full battery capacity.

[miegiel]

Yeap, it's understood. BUT!

Battery capacity decreasing started right after using Ubuntu. It APPEARED 3 times in a row when I worked on Ubuntu (during 2 days I had 3 discharging/charging cycles). Till that moment I used Win 7 and had no surges with battery capacity. Now I've got -0.5 mW every time I use my full battery capacity.

Just to be sure I'm not misunderstanding you. Do you mean "-0.5 mWh"?

W is a unit for power and batteries capacities are measured in units of energy like Wh (mWh, kWh), or Ah (mAh, kAh ) at a more or less constant voltage. After all, energy is power over time.

[almozavr]

Just to be sure I'm not misunderstanding you. Do you mean "-0.5 mWh"?

W is a unit for power and batteries capacities are measured in units of energy like Wh (mWh, kWh), or Ah (mAh, kAh ) at a more or less constant voltage. After all, energy is power over time.

Certainly, I'm sorry!

My battery lost 500 mWh or 0.5 Wh after last discharging cycle on Ubuntu Also I have a problem with charging now: can't reach "Fully charged capacity" and my indicator is yellow all the time. It ges't quickly to 99% during charging then... stucks here for a long time and nothing happens I'll see what happens next. But I had such a problem with 9.10 earlier half a year before - all came to battery changing after only 5 monthes of work... But Win 7 works fine with battery. That's offensively

[miegiel]

Certainly, I'm sorry!

My battery lost 500 mWh or 0.5 Wh after last discharging cycle on Ubuntu Also I have a problem with charging now: can't reach "Fully charged capacity" and my indicator is yellow all the time. It ges't quickly to 99% during charging then... stucks here for a long time and nothing happens I'll see what happens next. But I had such a problem with 9.10 earlier half a year before - all came to battery changing after only 5 monthes of work... But Win 7 works fine with battery. That's offensively

Ok, that's a significant amount. 5600mAh * 12V = 67.2Wh so 0.5 mWh would have been almost nothing.

[almozavr]

Ok, that's a significant amount. 5600mAh * 12V = 67.2Wh so 0.5 mWh would have been almost nothing.

No, it's wrong. I wrote

My battery lost 500 mWh or 0.5 Wh after last discharging cycle on Ubuntu

It means I have 57 Wh istead of 58,5 Wh after 3 full discharging/charging cycles...

[within]

You can't blame that on linux. It's normal for lithium batteries to loose capacity over time. They even loose capacity while lying on the shelf. They loose capacity faster when they're completely full or completely empty, at 40-50% they loose the least capacity over time. On the up side they don't age faster when you use them a lot. And they don't have a "memory", so you don't need to fully discharge and fully charge the battery to prevent capacity loss.

That's why I bought a laptop with a 6-8h battery life while I only really need 4h. After about 2 years the battery's capacity will be almost useless, though with a energy efficient laptop you might still get 1h of battery life.

that's weird... I've always been told charging and discharging battery should always be done from 0 to 100% to have longer battery life and better battery usage.
Of course, charing and discharging should affect the battery capacity amount...
for example, in my case, after 1 complete discharge and recharge of battery (yesterday) I have now:

within@within-laptop:~$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info
present:                 yes
design capacity:         5600 mAh
last full capacity:      5562 mAh
battery technology:      rechargeable
design voltage:          11100 mV
design capacity warning: 0 mAh
design capacity low:     0 mAh
capacity granularity 1:  100 mAh
capacity granularity 2:  0 mAh
model number:            AS09D36
serial number:           3E30
battery type:            LION
OEM info:                SSANY

It thus means after only 1 full cycle (discharge/charge), 38 mAh were lost.

Nevertheless, it is a fact that Ubuntu is not perfect for managing power and battery usage; this french article compares on 2 laptops the power consumption with win 7 and Ubuntu 10.04, the differences are sometimes huge:

http://www.presence-pc.com/actualite/Windows-Ubuntu-consommation-39263/#xtor=RSS-11

[salsa2010]

I'm new here! hello everyone! I just bought a 3810T Core2Solo without ATI and installed Xubuntu 10.04. My BIOS is 1.20. I am quite disappointed about the noise of the fan (after 2 minutes, it runs continuously, which is very annoying). I've read many posts about this topic, but couldn't find a definitive solution.

Could anyone who solved this issue describe the solution ? Which BIOS version is the best regarding this issue (8 versions are available on ACER's site! from 1.04 up to 1.27), which additional software should be used, which system modification can help ? Thank you very much

- salsa

[mr bob]

I have a 3410 so I don't know if there is any difference to the 3810 but when I flashed 1.24, there was no saving in power and the fan was spinning permanently on battery.

I reverted to 1.17 and the laptop is nice and quiet again.

BTW, if people would like to know how to flash an older version, there is a DOS flashit option /mc, which ignores version checking.

flashit JM3100FR.117 /mc

It looks like the little script accepts one option, so this may work too:

f.bat /mc

Here is my original post, it worked for me. I think the fan permanently spins from 1.20 onwards so 1.17 seems to be the best.

I think the only extra thing you get with 1.24 is hardware accelerated virtualization.

[salsa2010]

Here is my original post, it worked for me. I think the fan permanently spins from 1.20 onwards so 1.17 seems to be the best.

I think the only extra thing you get with 1.24 is hardware accelerated virtualization.

Unfortunately, this didn't work for me I downgraded my BIOS from 1.20 to 1.17, but still, the fan is blowing all the time. It blows even more when I switch AC on... I'll try with an older BIOS version, let's see.

Is there anyone who managed to stop the fan blowing all the time on a 3810t + (x)ubuntu ? or is this just normal behaviour ? in this case I'll regret my purchase...