More fun with laptop batteries - now a science project where you can take part!

[Kareem Shehata]

Apparently the random shutting down isn't a problem with my tablet.
Electrovaya would prefer if you stopped at the end of that previous
sentence, but they've pretty much admitted that it's a design problem
with all scribbler tablets. I was just the first to find it. Here comes
the fun part where you get to join in! I could really use some data
points on what happens with other manufacturers doing exactly the same
procedure. I've listed the test protocol below. If you have a laptop and
have a chance anytime in the next week, I would really appreciate if you
try this and let me know the results.  If you can't take the time to
follow the steps exactly, but somehow just drain the battery out under
normal use and let me know the results, that works too but I need to
know that you didn't follow the protocol so the data can be accurately
interpreted.

     1. Start with batteries fully charged and the laptop off
        (preferably for a long time so any thermals have settled)
     2. Boot and login as normal
     3. Change the power scheme to "always on" (or anything that won't
        suspend or turn off the screen)
     4. Keep the battery meter window open so you can tell how low the
        battery gets. Start a stop watch for runtime if you can.
     5. Start a scan of the hard disk for errors, including checking for
        bad sectors. All this does is make sure the hard drive is
        working continuously. When the scan completes, start it again.
     6. Time how long it takes, and what ends up happening when the
        batteries run low. Does it suspend when you expect it to?
        Hibernate? Do anything unusual, such as just shutdown? What's
        the lowest point the battery gets to?

Thanks in advance for your help with this!

-kms


--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists