Battery time remaining not displayed in Vista on my Compaq f756nr

Status
Not open for further replies.

Enterra

Posts: 6   +0
I can't seem to find a good solution to this, although I have found several forums indicating a similar issue, but only with HP/Compaq computers. I suspect that it has some thing to do with the Power Management System created by HP.... but unfortunately, it looks like they have given their laptops really bad PMS!!! :D

Seriously though, for as much as we pay for our laptops, why shouldn't they be able to do some thing as simple as calculating the remaining time of usage on a charge.

To that end, I contacted HP customer support:

Rachel: *available.
Daniel Wolfe: There has to be a bios update, or a program fix or some thing to allow HP and compaq laptops to calculate the time. I paid too much for this laptop for it not to be able to calculate its own battery time...
Daniel Wolfe: My brother is sitting right beside me with a gateway laptop on vista and he has battery time
Rachel: It might take some time to check this. Is that okay if I place you on hold for few minutes?
Daniel Wolfe: Sure! I'm a patient person
Daniel Wolfe: just keep me up to date like I asked!
Daniel Wolfe: Thank you very much!
Rachel: Sure
Rachel: Please be with me.
Daniel Wolfe: sure take your time
Rachel: Thank you.
Rachel: Thank you for your time and patience.
Rachel: I have found link to gadget to sho battery time left in notebook.Please download it from link
Daniel Wolfe: Thank you for your diligent effort!
Rachel: http://widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/systemdashboard-battery-meter
Rachel: Note: Please do not click on the link. Copy and paste the link in the new browser window and press enter.
Rachel: NOTE: The URL above will take you to a non HP Web site. HP does not control and is not responsible for information outside of the HP Web site
Daniel Wolfe: be right back
Rachel: Sure
Daniel Wolfe: its installing
Rachel: Okay
Rachel: Here is other link you can also use it.
Rachel: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=8f3fe8ee-2783-4295-84b3-f65e512d4383&l=1
Rachel: Note: Please do not click on the link. Copy and paste the link in the new browser window and press enter.
Rachel: NOTE: The URL above will take you to a non HP Web site. HP does not control and is not responsible for information outside of the HP Web site
Rachel: This should resolve the issue. If issue persists and you need further assistance, please get back to us with SessionID: 10011011203782779107
Rachel: For your convenience I will e-mail this chat transcript to your email at:
Rachel: danielhwolfe@yahoo.com
Daniel Wolfe: are you still there?
Rachel: Yesd
Rachel: *yes
Daniel Wolfe: it still does not calculate the battery time left.
Rachel: Please install it and restart notebook. also download both gadgets.
Daniel Wolfe: yeah, it just shows 0:00 as the time remaining when the notebook is unplugged... it made me restart the computer when I installed the widget program...
Rachel: It will display time when ac adapter is plugged in and time refreshes every 30 seconds.
Daniel Wolfe: well, when its plugged in, the time display disappears... when uplugged, it just shows 0:00... the widget is trying to read the time, but there seems to be an issue with the way HP has designed its power management system...
Daniel Wolfe: the time is not able to be read by vista or any other software
Daniel Wolfe: I guess I was hoping you could talk to a tech, or software engineer or some thing so that the issue could be resolved
Rachel: Have you installed yahoo battery gadget?
Daniel Wolfe: yes...
Rachel: Sure I will forward your concern to appropriate department
Daniel Wolfe: Sorry to have troubled you... :(
Rachel: No problem.
Rachel: Not to worry I will surely forward issue to our technical department.
Rachel: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
Daniel Wolfe: please foreward this conversation to my email
Daniel Wolfe: Other than that... thank you for attempting to help me fix this issue with your laptops
Rachel: Sure
Rachel: My pleasure in assiting you and thank you so much for your time.
Rachel: Mail was send to danielhwolfe@yahoo.com


In any case, that was no help. Does any one have a solution?:confused:
 
Windows has a built-in battery status indicator. I'm not sure why anyone would fool with packages from HP and 'widgets'. :)

Right click anywhere on the unused space of your Taskbar and click 'Properties' in the menu that appears. Make sure the 'Power' box is checked under 'Taskbar Appearance' in the 'Taskbar' tab section.

Does that work?
 
Thanks for the replay Rick, it is checked, and the problem is that it does show the percentage of battery left, but does not tell you how much time (hh:mm) you have until the unit runs out of juice....

so unless you want figure it out manually by knowing the total time your battery runs for and looking at the % when you want to know how much time you have left... your SOL

I would think that there has to be some kind of fix some where for this right?
 
Sounds like it is probably an issue with Vista's ACPI battery control driver. Also, perhaps HP is using some sort of proprietary driver rather than the default Microsoft driver which could be mucking things up... but I haven't seen one of those yet.

In device manager, check out what it says under 'Batteries'. You can get to Device Manager by going to Start (windows button) > Start search > and type devmgmt.msc

It should show something like AC Adapter and Microsoft ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery. Right click on the ACPI battery option and uninstall it. Do NOT uninstall anything else that says ACPI. ONLY the battery! Doing otherwise could render your system unbootable.

Restart your computer and it should be fixed. If it is not, I'd be interested in finding a solution for you.
 
dosn't work

hi, im having the same problem. im running vista home premium 32-bit on a brand new HP dv6700 laptop.

i just tried uninstalling the Microsoft ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery from device manager, rebooted, then held my breath.............and nothing.

it still only shows the %, not the time (as previously stated).

i've only had the laptop for a week and still haven't found a solution. i am currently using a third party application (which HP told me to do but they don't support it) called battery bar, from nistech, but it's only a 30 day trial.
 
Yeah no luck for me either... I wonder what the issue could be...

If one piece of software is able to read the battery life (battery bar) then why can't another? I never really got into programming... but maybe if we could understand that reason, we could find a solution?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back