AC power going bezerk!

Hi everybody.

I have my a6T laptop a little less than a year now. Recently I discovered when my laptop is plugged in, and I start working on it, the power4gear OSD keeps jumping up and changing skeems really quicky. THis is very annoying when it comes down to writing a thesis on this laptop. I've just reinstalled windows and the problem still exists.

Any1 ever had such a problem? I'm blaming the charger, although when I boot ubuntu, everything appears normal. And the switching happens to occur whenever I focus another window in windows.

 

Are you stating that when you use your notebook in Windows and with the AC, Power4Gear starts to act up?. What profiles is it jumping from? AC mode to Battery mode or all the profiles?

How about battery? Does Power4Gear act up on battery?

First thing I want you to try is another Wall Outlet in your house, try that, and see if that works.

Next is to not use P4G for a test run. Start, Run, "msconfig", and uncheck BatteryLife. This will stop P4G from starting up. Reboot the notebook and then see how things run. So yes you will be using Windows built in power modes.

Then you may want to try using a 3rd party progarm to handle your power modes, for testing, RMClock or NHC if you like, you may want to totaly eliminate the use of P4G if you want.

You may also want to find your driver/utilities disc and put that into the laptop and install P4G again, or check the Asus website for an update.

 

Thank you for the reply ,

It happens about 10 minutes after booting into windows (clean). It starts to randomly shuffle through power profiles(all of them) for no absolute reason. A few months ago i didn't have this problem, so i'm almost sure it's not because of the software (recover cd's don't update themselves).

When i run off the battery, the laptop works they way it should. It stays in a constant profile.

I tried multiple outlets. At work, at friends house, at home 3 different locations.

When deactivating BatteryLife, I also noticed Hcontrol.exe in the ATK folder is being executed. should that be deactivated aswell?

Thanks in advance !

 

No, just BatteryLife.

I suggest you turn off Power 4 Gear and see how the computer behaves. If the AC power keeps disconnecting, you should see the battery icon appearing and disappearing from the system tray. Another way to check (if you're using WinXP) is to download MobileMeter and check whether battery is discharging for brief periods of time. Yet another way is to check if the battery LED is activated for brief periods of time when the power comes back on.

But it P4G is switching through all the profiles I suspect it's just a bug with the software itself.

If that is the case, just leave Windows and Intel SpeedStep take care of the CPU frequency, or use another software as the second poster suggested, RMClock or NHC.

 

Maybe The ac adapter is faulty,
i had an external battery that went bad and i can see on mobmeter that it charges for a ms then stops then starts then stop then starts meanwhile my screen flickers from this and my mouse moves very choppily

 

Now that you mention it, it appears to be switching between AC and batterymode only. In the system taskbar, I can see the battery icon popping up each time batterymode is activated. Gonna see what mobile meter says.

But I'm going to assume the adapter isn't functioning properly anymore and need to find a replacement?

By the way, the battery led does not turn on when it switches to batterymode. And the battery feature in windows tells me the batter level is 100 percent at all times.

 

I wouldnt be supprised if it were the adapter. My one A6t adapter gets extremly hot, way hotter than eny other asus one I've had before (same changer too) I find that i have to place it on its narrow side so that more surface has contact with the air for cooling. It also give off a little 50Hz whine if i leave it plugged into the laptop at night even if its not charging it. not loud, but annoying


insane

 

yep, if it's only switching between batt mode and ac, it's very likely the adapter. You can use all three methods I gave above to check.

Ediit: I now read your message in more detail; it's possible the battery isn't discharging enough for the logic inside to decide it needs to recharge. That's I think good, because there is a less probability that the battery will be damaged by all this.

Next thing to check if it's the adapter or the wiring in the computer... if you have a compatible adapter around. If it's just the adapter (maybe you can check the LED on the adapter for powering off and on? but usually there is a lag if the switching is fast you might not see it) then you can probably replace it without sending in the computer.

 

try running the PC on the adapter only without the battery and see if it does the same thing.


insane

 

I suspect the notebook will just shutdown (i.e., turn off the hard way) when it runs out of power for the first time

But it's useful to try of course.

 

Once again thanks for all the help, really appreciate it.

Mobmeter is doing the exact same thing as the battery in the system task bar. It jumps to discharging all by itself, in that mode it reports a discharge rate of 0.66W and 0W. When i unplug my adapter (real battery operation then) it shows a discharge rate of around 20W which is normal. It hardly ever enters the charging state in mobmeter.

I took out the battery and started the laptop. It des the xact same thing as before. My laptop is still running, even though it's continiously switching to battery mode. But now it tends to be more in AC mode than battery mode.

Would you advise me to buy/order (no idea how to about that yet) a new adapter?

Maybe i can measure the voltage over the adapter (non-connected) but that wouldn't proove anything. I would have to measure it when the lines are loaded of something which means cutting the wire.

 

Weird (the laptop entering "battery mode" even though there's no battery). I would expect it to turn off; the fact that it doesn't could mean three things:

1. there is enough power coming from the adapter to keep the notebook running, but because of faulty adapter the power drops for some time and the notebook detects it's on battery (still, how? I'm unsure about the implementation details of these things)
2. fault in the ACPI software/driver that makes the system read incorrectly the power status of the notebook when on AC
2. fault in the ACPI hardware/BIOS that makes the system read incorrectly the power status of the notebook when on AC

Could you perhaps boot into Linux to fully eliminate software as an issue? Before going to more radical solutions like changing hardware. You could download and burn Knoppix or Slax onto a CD, and then boot from that CD, and see if this sort of stuff is still happenning.

If it is, try updating BIOS or resetting BIOS to defaults. If that doesn't help, I would strongly suggest trying a different and compatible adapter (any friends with ASUS laptops?) before ordering a new adapter. Because as seen in my list above this could be something else than the adapter.

If it does the same thing with the new adapter, and under Windows and Linux, RMA the computer (it's newer than 1 year so it should be under warranty). If not, then the adapter is at fault and you can RMA the adapter without the notebook (if possible, you can ask the service guys over the phone). In any case you needn't pay for it if it's still under warranty.

 

yup. oh this may be of some help to you but my card reader in my A6t didnt work properly. Only the MS part would work but not the SD card part.

I took it into my local Asus center and they replaced the mainboard for me (took 35 minutes) and it did the same thing. They replaced it again (another 35 minutes wait) and the 3rd mainboard worked.


Maybe you got a lemon like me


Insane

 

Like I said, I have Ubuntu installed on an external drive and I really don't notice anything when running that. Maybe it still does weird but ubuntu just ignores it orso (the symtoms are invisible) ? I really not up for blaming the software again. It's a clean factory default windows, just like the first day I installed everything. I've done factory reboots a couple of times in between and all went well until recently.

Unfortunately, going to Asus in my area isn't very easy since I live in Belgium (there's no asus chain in Belgium ) . I ordered my laptop from the netherlands. I know it's rather famous adapter though, so maybe i could find a replacement (there's a few at my school I'm sure).

Then I just call the dealer(if its the adapter) where I bought my laptop? or asus international? beacause it is still indeed under warrenty. They'll ask me to ship my laptop and everything and miss it for roughly 2 months ?n I really hope that won't be the case.

 

Sorry I didn't see you wrote about your Linux installation. I try to scan rather than read the threads, sometimes it doesn't give good results.

If it doesn't do it in Linux, like I said, I would be inclined to blame software, or more specifically the interaction between firmware and the Windows software. Did you install updated ACPI drivers (ATK) from the ASUS website? If not you could try that as well.

To check in Linux, I think you can monitor /proc/ACPI/battery/BAT0/state or something like that. If you can check that in real-time you can see if battery discharges for brief periods of time (I wouldn't know how to check that file in real time since I'm a Linux rookie but there should be some way to do it).

You don't need to go to ASUS, you will send it to Asus Nederland in Emmen, Nederland (I live in the Netherlands so I did it a few times). You call them, they give you an RMA number, then TNT will call you and set a meeting and you'll just have to have it packed for them the next day. Unfortunately, it is going to spend 1 to 2 weeks in RMA...

You can order the adapter if the cost is negligible, in that way you'll know if it's the adapter or not (and if it's not you'll have a spare adapter ) But if you have some at school why not try with those? You'll be able to determine if it's the adapter then.

 

This may be grasping at straws but i believe that linux has a fast and normal change rate. (well some distro's do) maybe linux is not charging the battery as fast and therefore doesn't create the error.

although the adapter does look at fault

insane