New battery doesn't work under linux, but does under windows

So I bought a new battery for my laptop and installed it. I booted into Linux (gentoo) and kpowersave recognized the new battery and for the next few hours showed it charging up. The guy at the battery store said I should charge it fully and then discharge fully to calibrate, so, once full, i disconnected AC power and continued to work. kpowersave recognize that power had been removed and showed the battery discharging at a normal rate. After about 1 minute, my laptop just shut off. No warnings or attempts to suspend or hibernate or anything. Power was just cut off. I tested several times and always got the same result. I assumed it was a bad battery, but then I had to boot into windows for something and decided to try it there. In windows, I waited till the charge was at 100% then disconnected AC and let it run. It ran for about two hours as expected before dying. But if I boot back into linux, it dies again after just a minute or two. I don't even know where to begin. Any ideas? $170 battery that I can't take back because it does actually work, and anyway, it seems to be a software issue. Eric

Quoted 28 lines · you

Quoted 9 lines · Eric Atkin

So I bought a new battery for my laptop and installed it. I booted into Linux (gentoo) and kpowersave recognized the new battery and for the next few hours showed it charging up. The guy at the battery store said I should charge it fully and then discharge fully to calibrate, so, once full, i disconnected AC power and continued to work. kpowersave recognize that power had been removed and showed the battery discharging at a normal rate. After about 1 minute, my laptop just shut off. No warnings or attempts to suspend or hibernate or anything. Power was just cut off. I tested several times and always got the same result. I assumed it was a

Quoted 9 lines

bad battery, but then I had to boot into windows for something and decided to try it there. In windows, I waited till the charge was at 100% then disconnected AC and let it run. It ran for about two hours as expected before dying. But if I boot back into linux, it dies again after just a minute or two. I don't even know where to begin. Any ideas? $170 battery that I can't take back because it does actually work, and anyway, it seems to be a software issue.
Eric

First, you should tell us your kernel version and loaded battery module (battery.ko or sbs.ko)
Second, please do a "grep . /proc/acpi/battery/*/*" with attached AC and try to do this with it disconnected.
It might be a good idea to open a new bug report in bugzilla.kernel.org for ACPI/battery and assign it to
[email protected] (me).

Quoted 3 lines

Regards,
Alex.

Alex,
Thank you for your time. See the things you've requested below. I'm still waiting for my password to log into bugzilla. I'll create that when I can. I've not used a mailing list like this before. Should I have sent this response to the list?

Eric

--

I'm using 'battery' and _not_ 'sbs' and it is built into the kernel rather than a loadable module. I don't really know the difference between the two modules and I would be happy to compile and test with sbs if you think that is relevant.

eris linux # uname -a
Linux eris 2.6.25-gentoo-r8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Oct 12 20:19:52 MDT 2008 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7200 @ 2.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

With AC:
eris linux # grep . /proc/acpi/battery/*/*
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/alarm:alarm: unsupported

/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:present:                 yes
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:design capacity:         53280 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:last full capacity:      50430 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:battery technology:      non-rechargeable
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:design voltage:          123160 mV
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:design capacity warning: 1000 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:design capacity low:     400 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:capacity granularity 1:  100 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:capacity granularity 2:  100 mWh

/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:model number:
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:serial number:
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:battery type: LiOn
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:OEM info: Sony Corp.

/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:present:                 yes
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:capacity state:          ok
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:charging state:          charging
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:present rate:            unknown
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:remaining capacity:      50430 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:present voltage:         unknown

On battery:
eris linux # grep . /proc/acpi/battery/*/*
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/alarm:alarm: unsupported

/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:present:                 yes
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:design capacity:         53280 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:last full capacity:      50430 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:battery technology:      non-rechargeable
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:design voltage:          123160 mV
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:design capacity warning: 1000 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:design capacity low:     400 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:capacity granularity 1:  100 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:capacity granularity 2:  100 mWh

/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:model number:
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:serial number:
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:battery type: LiOn
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info:OEM info: Sony Corp.

/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:present:                 yes
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:capacity state:          ok
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:charging state:          discharging
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:present rate:            unknown
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:remaining capacity:      50430 mWh
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state:present voltage:         unknown