Re: Re: uhoh, evil mojo ...

> If both are at 100% at start it does:  75% swap to second battery, 65%
> swap back to first, 45% swap to second, 40% swap to first, 25% swap to
> second, 20% swap to first, 15% swap to second, 10% swap to first, 8%
> swap to second, 6% swap to first, 4% swap to second, 3% swap to first,
> 2% swap to second, 2% swap to first, 1% swap to second, 1% swap to
> first.  And well then it dies <g>  Charging up from 1% follows:  25%
> swap to second, 25% swap to first, 40% swap to second, 40% swap to
> first, 50% swap to second, 50% swap to first, 75% swap to second, 75%
> swap to first, 80% swap to second, 85% swap to first, 90% swap to
> second, 95% swap to first, 95% swap to second, blah blah blah.
> -- these are approximates, it depends on starting voltage/etc. 
> Basically every 2/3rds of what was remaning it pulls a swap until it
> gets below a certain point and then it's every 50% or so.

That's definitely weird. Mine discharges battery one from 100% to 10%,
then battery two from 100% to 10%, and only then starts cycling
regularly between both (never checked exactly how, but it does cycle).

It's different for charging, where I believe it cycles more. It may
simply be in order to prevent the batteries from overheating (charging a
battery generates much heat IIRC).

> 3)  It APPEARS that sometimes -- NOT ALWAYS -- when it goes to swap
> which battery is currently active (whether charging or discharging) it
> loses power.  It is not consistent, there does not seem to be ANYTHING
> that causes this, and it's just weird.

One thing I am thinking of. I think I remember laptops have an internal
battery (or is it a simple capacitor) which they use to regulate the
power level when switching from battery to AC or back. Maybe *this* is
broken in your laptop and causes the trouble.

If this is the case, I would expect the problem to show under Windows as
well - and I think I remember you told it wasn't the case?

If it happens only under Linux, it *may* be ACPI related. The ACPI
support under linux is still being developped. So maybe you could try
bleeding edge ACPI support and see what happens. However, I'd really
expect the power-supply to be a hardware thing, so I'm not sure at which
point the ACPI software layer could break things.

> I would think I should be able to emulate this by pulling the active
> battery when on battery -- but that doesn't seem to work, it appears
> to have to be something BIOS initiated.  Maybe I just need a BIOS
> update, wonder if Sony would send me a copy of the BIOS and an update
> tool for this.

I found one for my own laptop. Never used it, because it requires
writing a floppy disk and booting on it, and I do *not* have one on my
laptop (stupid Sony). I could burn a CD-R instead, but I don't feel like
paying for a BIOS update since everything works OK (of course, Sony does
*not* say what the BIOS is supposed to fix/improve).

Could find one for you there:
http://www.ita.sel.sony.com/B2B/drivers/drivers.php?model=PCG-GRX600K

But it seems it is the same as the original one, so it wouldn't help.

-- 
Jean Delvare
http://www.ensicaen.ismra.fr/~delvare/