Laptop power supply problems

Hi there

I am running Windows XP SP2 on a Dell Inspiron 630m laptop.

I have recently partitioned my 100Gb hard drive using Partition Magic so that my Windows XP system runs off 50Gb, with Linux and a FAT32 partition making up the remainder. Since doing so I have encountered a number of glitches in Windows, one of which involves the battery icon in the bottom right of the screen. The icon permanently shows "on AC power" regardless of whether it is running off the mains or battery supply. If I double click on the icon, a box pops up with only four tabs across the top: power schemes, advanced, hibernate and ups. The UPS tab displays an error that says "the UPS service has lost communication with the UPS ". The only option for the UPS port allowable is Port 6.

Another possibly related glitch is that upon shutdown, the laptop will not turn itself off - instead going to a screen saying that it is now safe to turn the computer off (manually).

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks.

Ruth

 

Bios : Power and Energy Saving Settings

Are there any power or energy saving features in the Bios that you can play around with ?

 

Do you have the laptop connected to a UPS device?
Does the device have a serial or USB cable that is connected to your laptop?
If so, is it connected?

If you do not have an UPS connected as described, anything returned under the Power Management UPS tab is irrelevant.

Some things to try:

Start, Run, devmgmt.msc (this opens Device Manager)
Click "Action ", click "Scan for hardware changes. "

I no joy from that, go back into Power Options.
If you have checkmarked to enable APM, uncheck the option.

Your issue is slightly worriesome because XP may have mis-identified your HAL during installation as non-ACPI compliant.

Start, Run, devmgmt.msc
Expand the Computer section near the top.

This exposes the installed HAL description.
It should read something like "Uniprocessor ACPI-compliant "

 

Have you disabled/removed the power tools that came with the laptop?

On my Toshiba M45 laptop the Toshiba power tools would conflict with my "experimenting" and I had to uninstall them (well, actually I crashed the system and deleted my image - so I had to reinstall. And when I did, I didn't install the tools) and everything works just fine now.


- John (usasma = U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy)
"There are very few problems in life that can't be fixed by the proper application of high explosives "

 

Thanks to all that responded.

Bill - I think that you may have identified the problem: my Windows session is running a non-ACPI compliant HAL. I couldn't see how to view the installed HAL description, but from looking at: http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/5566d.aspx
I have worked out that it's not running in ACPI mode, nor is APM installed (any more!). Is there a straight forward solution to this or do I have to reinstall Windows? My Windows partition is now so buggy that perhaps a full reformat of this partition followed by reinstalling a clean version of XP with all the drivers might be best. However, I'm worried that this might wipe/affect my other partitions. Is it possible to do this reinstall without affecting the other partitions?

Thanks so much for all help!

Ruth

 

You can do an in-Place repair reinstallation of XP without effecting any other partition. When during the early stages of installation a prompt appears on the bottom of the screen requesting RAID drivers, and to hit F6, instead hit the F5 function key and choose a Uniprocessor ACPI compliant HAL. (While it is possible to change the HAL using Device Manager and the Computer Entry, and selecting Update drivers, please do the in-Place Upgrade instead).

. Notes on HAL selection during installation or an in-place Upgrade:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=299340

. How to performan an in-Place Upgrade:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315341

While the in-place reinstall will not cause you to lose installed applications or user data, you will lose Service Pack and Windows Updates, so plan on spending some time at the Windows Update site afterwards.

One thing I would check first is that you have installed the chipset level drivers for the SMBUS. This is how the battery state is communicated to the system:

This is an Intel chipset feature, and the worse case is that you have not installed the chipset level driver required:
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/cs-013541.htm

For drivers: http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/inf/

 

Thanks for your help Bill.

Please can you confirm how I can know for sure that the drivers required for the SMBUS are not installed? I have looked in device manager and cannot find the name of the chipset device anywhere in the list - I take it this means it isn't installed? Also of concern (to me!) is the number of duplicated devices on my device manager list - three identical plug and play monitors, two identical display adaptors... etc etc... I was of the understanding that these devices should only be listed once each. By comparison with a friend's Window's XP setup, mine does not include any of the ACPI compliant drivers that his has and instead has two PCI Express Root Ports each with a yellow exclamation mark next to them.

After I first partitioned my disk I tried to reinstall XP over my existing installation and had to 'enter' through many, many error messages in order to complete the installation. I seem to remember one of them being a hal.dll error - I assume this may be causing the problems now, but I'm concerned that a reinstallation will have the same results.

Your help is very much appreciated!

Ruth

 

The best way to check the drivers for the SMBUS is to run the Intel Utility I linked earlier.

It will identify what if anything needs to be installed and do so.

Likely your earlier errors on reinstalling XP had not so much to do with a HAL choice, but in finding HAL.DLL because of the partition change.

You should not experience this again.

One other note: Go to the Dell site and download the appropriate diagnostic software for your machine (if you do not already have such). One of the diagnostic options is to check the battery/charging system. You want to run that test.

One thing you can do short of that is test things in a limited way yourself:

With the machine off, remove the battery and CD drive. Place the battery into the CD slot of the laptop. Power on the machine with AC, and look again after you restart Windows for the battery meter status. This makes sure things are okay with the physical connection between the battery and the laptop.

Then remove the battery and press the little white button on its side. A series of lights should show the battery health. If no lights show after a few moments, it might be time for a new battery. For the Latitude and Inspiron batteries, I get about two years out of them. This is not due to memory effects or cycle exhaustion, but because the Lithion Ion batteries proved more sensitive to heat than was expected. The batteries were essentially slowly roasting to death in early laptop designs, such as mine. Newer designs take care to duct heat away from the battery.

 

Thanks for all the info.

I'm pretty sure there is no physical connection problem with the laptop and the battery - I have Fedora on another partition and the battery meter works no problem.

I checked the drivers on the intel site and downloaded them, and confirmed that they were downloaded, but it didn't solve the problem :-(

So, finally I tried a reinstall of Windows XP. I got to the F6/F5 part and hit F5, but was not presented with the option of a Uniprocessor ACPI compliant HAL - only something along the lines of "standard pc" or "other ". Selecting "other" took me to a prompt for another disk, so I went back and selected the "standard pc" option (sorry, I can't remember exactly what it said). The installation was smoother than the first time I tried a month or two ago but there were still at least 15 error messages where the installer couldn't find various files. I browsed the CD and verified that they were present, and I burned them from a friend's pc onto disk and tried to use that, but it wasn't having it - just point blank couldn't copy them across. None of the files were hal.dll though - I think they were all SP2 related files.

Anyway, it's now reinstalled, but I have the same problems as before and one added one that my wireless device appears to be unrecognised...

Thanks for your patience... Any more ideas very welcome

Ruth

 

1. HAL Selection during installation or re-installation of XP:

. Notes on HAL selection during installation or an in-place Upgrade:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=299340

2. If you receive repeated copy errors during installation, and can rule out a dirty CD disk, in my experience it indicates RAM problems. Even if in other respects the computer appears to act normally. Microsoft notes for the problem:

You really need to exhaustively test your RAM. See the notes at #10 and #12 for memory tester links: http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=59942

 

Thanks Bill! I have succesfully reinstalled Windows with the correct HAL and my battery icon is now working correctly. Device manager looks much healthier and everything seems to be functioning correctly.

I still had the same error messages when installing Windows and have downloaded Memtest86. I will try to run it over the next week and try to identify whether I have any RAM problems.

Thanks very much for your patience and help. I would never have sorted this out otherwise.

Ruth

 

What good news.

Thanks for reporting back.

My guess is still RAM issues that explain the file copy errors that you receive. Remember that the XP installation is likely the hardest job your computer will ever face in terms of its overall hardware quality.

I hope I am wrong about the RAM. But please test it.

Best New Year's Wishes, to you Ruth,
Bill