Compaq laptop doesn't show battery support

[Sam Goldwasser]

This is a Presario 1200 series. It works fine in every other respect
but not only does the battery not charged or recognized, there is no
evidence that the OS even knows this is a laptop with a battery.
Device Manager has no entry for battery management and the "Power Options"
entry in Control Panel doesn't have a battery mode.

So, is this bad OS install or bad hardware? It's XP. Yes, believe it or not,
I'm not running Dos 3.0 on this one.

Any comments appreciated. This isn't a big deal as the battery is old and
most likely dead anyhow, but I'm curious.

Yes, I know what they say about curiosity....

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[Dave Platt]

This is a Presario 1200 series. It works fine in every other respect
but not only does the battery not charged or recognized, there is no
evidence that the OS even knows this is a laptop with a battery.
Device Manager has no entry for battery management and the "Power Options"
entry in Control Panel doesn't have a battery mode.

So, is this bad OS install or bad hardware? It's XP. Yes, believe it or not,
I'm not running Dos 3.0 on this one.

Could be any of the above.

As I understand it, older laptops used a combination of
vendor-proprietary features, and APM, to provide support for battery
and power management. Newer laptops use ACPI. Windows XP supports
both, but prefers ACPI - APM-only laptops may or may not have ACPI
support enabled by default. Even if the laptop does support ACPI,
it's possible that XP can't use it - there were a fairly substantial
number of systems which have defective ACPI tables in their BIOSen
which don't function properly with some operating system ACPI
interpreters.

According to Wikipedia, the 1200 series actually includes a wide range
of variations... you might have a model with a bogus APM or ACPI.
It's even possible that you have a model so old that neither standard
is supported, and vendor-proprietary drivers are needed in order to
enable power management.

First suggestion: boot up into the BIOS setup screens, and see if
you can tell whether APM or ACPI is supported, and (if so) whether
it's enabled.

Second suggestion: boot up Knoppix or a similar CD-ROM-based Linux
distribution (which won't disrupt your XP install). See if it can
"see" any of the battery or power management support. If so, this
would indicate that the hardware is probably OK, and that XP doesn't
have the right set of drivers or configuration.

 

[hemyd]

This is a Presario 1200 series. It works fine in every other respect
but not only does the battery not charged or recognized, there is no
evidence that the OS even knows this is a laptop with a battery.
Device Manager has no entry for battery management and the "Power Options"
entry in Control Panel doesn't have a battery mode.

So, is this bad OS install or bad hardware? It's XP. Yes, believe it or
not,
I'm not running Dos 3.0 on this one.

Any comments appreciated. This isn't a big deal as the battery is old and
most likely dead anyhow, but I'm curious.

Yes, I know what they say about curiosity....

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/
Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/
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| Mirror Sites: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_mirror.html

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above
is
ignored unless my full name AND either lasers or electronics is included
in the
subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.

G'day Sam,

Can you power up the laptop with only the battery? Probably a silly
question, as the battery would be flat by now. The best method of
eliminating hardware is try substituting the battery - if you can find
another one of that vintage. Although it may be the power management
software, if you're unlucky it will be the system board. If you can find
another laptop of the exact same model, try substitution. First the battery,
then the hard disk, which will eliminate the software. Does the laptop have
any leds which register the presence of a battery?

Batteries are quite complex these days, with feedback circuitry of all sorts
(I'm no expert on batteries). I read once that most laptop batteries fail
not because of bad cells, but faulty circuitry.

Henry Mydlarz
Australia

 

[Michael Kennedy]

G'day Sam,

Can you power up the laptop with only the battery? Probably a silly
question, as the battery would be flat by now. The best method of
eliminating hardware is try substituting the battery - if you can find
another one of that vintage. Although it may be the power management
software, if you're unlucky it will be the system board. If you can find
another laptop of the exact same model, try substitution. First the
battery, then the hard disk, which will eliminate the software. Does the
laptop have any leds which register the presence of a battery?

Batteries are quite complex these days, with feedback circuitry of all
sorts (I'm no expert on batteries). I read once that most laptop batteries
fail not because of bad cells, but faulty circuitry.

Henry Mydlarz
Australia

Thats interesting, kind of like drive electronics fail on HDDs.

Mike

 

[bz]

This is a Presario 1200 series. It works fine in every other respect
but not only does the battery not charged or recognized, there is no
evidence that the OS even knows this is a laptop with a battery.
Device Manager has no entry for battery management and the "Power
Options" entry in Control Panel doesn't have a battery mode.

So, is this bad OS install or bad hardware? It's XP. Yes, believe it
or not, I'm not running Dos 3.0 on this one.

Any comments appreciated. This isn't a big deal as the battery is old
and most likely dead anyhow, but I'm curious.

Yes, I know what they say about curiosity.

You might visit support.dell.com, download the XP drivers for that model
and install them.





--
bz 73 de N5BZ k

please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.

[email protected] remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap

 

[Sam Goldwasser]

You might visit support.dell.com, download the XP drivers for that model
and install them.

I did that but only found drivers for the touchpad and something else
unrelated. Is there a place at dell.com that will have all drivers for
a machine that old?

BTW, installing the touchpad drivers did upgrade the touchpad from a
vanilla flavored mouse, so that does suggest that whoever loaded XP,
didn't have the Dell drivers.

Thanks.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/
Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/
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| Mirror Sites: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_mirror.html

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is
ignored unless my full name AND either lasers or electronics is included in the
subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.

 

[Sam Goldwasser]

I did that but only found drivers for the touchpad and something else
unrelated. Is there a place at dell.com that will have all drivers for
a machine that old?

That should have read: hp.com or compaq.com. P.S. the complete
model number is 12XL420.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/
Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/
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Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is
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[bz]

That should have read: hp.com or compaq.com. P.S. the complete
model number is 12XL420.

compaq.com, yeah!

Well, HP has a link for downloading the 'HP battery check' on
http://tinyurl.com/357w2a
but the link seems to be broken.

Perhaps, knowing what you are looking for, google can help you find it.
Perhaps someone has the original installation CD for that model.

Good luck.





--
bz 73 de N5BZ k

please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.

[email protected] remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap

 

[nvic]

The link for Battery Check is:

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp32001-32500/sp32299.exe

Hope it helps

 

[Franc Zabkar]

I did that but only found drivers for the touchpad and something else
unrelated. Is there a place at dell.com that will have all drivers for
a machine that old?

BTW, installing the touchpad drivers did upgrade the touchpad from a
vanilla flavored mouse, so that does suggest that whoever loaded XP,
didn't have the Dell drivers.

All I found was this:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...ge=product&printable=no&dlc=en&product=95093&

Is it possible that Win XP already includes the appropriate sound and
display drivers? For example, do you see a "Trident Cyberblade Cbi1"
video card in DM?

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Sam Goldwasser]

The link for Battery Check is:

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp32001-32500/sp32299.exe

Hope it helps

Thanks. I'll check it out.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/
Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/
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| Mirror Sites: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_mirror.html

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is
ignored unless my full name AND either lasers or electronics is included in the
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[Sam Goldwasser]

All I found was this:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...ge=product&printable=no&dlc=en&product=95093&

Right, that's all I found.

Is it possible that Win XP already includes the appropriate sound and
display drivers? For example, do you see a "Trident Cyberblade Cbi1"
video card in DM?

Don't know. The Trident does show up.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/
Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/
+Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm
| Mirror Sites: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_mirror.html

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is
ignored unless my full name AND either lasers or electronics is included in the
subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.

 

[Sam Goldwasser]

The link for Battery Check is:

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp32001-32500/sp32299.exe

Hope it helps

"System is not compatible with this program" or something to that
effect.

Thanks.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/
Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/
+Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm
| Mirror Sites: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_mirror.html

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is
ignored unless my full name AND either lasers or electronics is included in the
subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

"System is not compatible with this program" or something to that
effect.

Maybe you need to install Service pack 2 ???

======================================================================
Which Windows operating systems does the HP Battery Check support?

"The Battery Check supports Windows XP SP2 or Windows 2K with the .NET
framework installed."
======================================================================

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Right, that's all I found.

Don't know. The Trident does show up.

Sam, are you familiar with Belarc Advisor? It's free and very
useful: <http://www.belarc.com/Programs/advisor.exe> Right click and
save it to your computer, or just run it from their website to install
on your computer.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Batteries are quite complex these days, with feedback circuitry of all sorts
(I'm no expert on batteries). I read once that most laptop batteries fail
not because of bad cells, but faulty circuitry.

Henry Mydlarz
Australia

I believe "smart" batteries have a coulomb counter which maintains an
accurate record of the state of charge.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Battery_Data

The interface is I2C aka SMBus in PC terminology.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Management_Bus

- Franc Zabkar