Problems with Advanced Power Management on Laptop

[gbtidi]

Whenever I turn on APM (control panel - power options), Windows 2k says my laptop battery is critical, running at only 1% power It doesn't seem to detect plugging in a power source either - it still thinks it's running from the battery. However, my battery and power supply still seem to function. The battery charges as normal, and I get a good couple of hours useage out of it (as normal!) Any suggestions as to what might be causing this, and how it can be fixed?

 

[Bobo]

A messed up computer....maybe

Another thing to try is XP (if you have the money ) It is much better at self-diagnosis than any other Win. OSes

 

[Praetor]

Whats the laptop make/model? Some lappys under 2K require dedicated "battery drivers" (or rather battery interface dirvers) to work as intended

 

[gbtidi]

It's an Ascentia M6000 PII 300MHZ with 128MB RAM. I might be able to get hold of XP, but I'm pushing my system resources as it is! I'm an impoverished student which is why I'm still running such an old machine (and it's fine for what i need to do - basic word processing, internet, email, a bit of powerpoint, excel, and photoshop, and of course a bit of gaming ). I've been running Win 2K for about 3 months without any problems, except for the battery (I was previously running Win98, which doesn't have the APM features. The batt was fine then). The battery performance is completely normal - when running off the batt i get normal times. I've tried tweaking the relavant settings in the BIOS to no effect. I'll check what version of battery driver i'm currently running, and see if Google will give me any info on updates

 

[Praetor]

I've been running Win 2K for about 3 months without any problems, except for the battery (I was previously running Win98, which doesn't have the APM features. The batt was fine then).

Yeah i wouldnt stress it too much (provided you keep an eye on the time when yer on battery) ... my guess is perhaps the battery interface is too old to be properly recognized by 2K ... dont expect XP to give you earth shattering difference though.