Subject: Re: using battery/AC power on nec mobilepro
To: Pierre-Philipp Braun <ppwb@club-internet.fr>
From: Markus Hennecke <hennecke@web.de>
List: port-hpcmips
Date: 04/27/2004 16:06:59
On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, Pierre-Philipp Braun wrote:

> i've got a question i should originaly ask to NEC support.
> Nevertheless, i suppose i would have quicker and better answer here.
> 
> I'm wondering if i may let the battery in its place into the mobilepro all
> the time even w/ AC power.
> When the charging has ended, the light turns green and apm says 80 percent.
> This looks good and i guess it stops charging, which would be relevant.
> Nevertheless, i'm not sure about that and would like to be sure the battery
> isn't charging all the time. Indeed, using AC power a whole week or more
> could kill the battery by overcharging it i guess.
> It the latter, i would have to get the battery off the mobilepro when it's
> charged.

The apm program will tell you one of the following values for the 
battery state: "critical", 20%, 50% or 80%. So if it says 80% it will 
tell you that it is above 80%. 

If I remember correctly the charging is not controlled by the kernel but 
must be controlled by some logic built into the device. This logic 
controlls the ligth indicating that the battery is charged. So if you 
can see the light beeing turned on with AC power connected you should 
remove the battery. If this does not happen then no charging will take 
place and you can leave it in.

Greetings
  Markus