X wont load on battery power.

[cap'n jazz]

Hi i just installed linux mint 9 on my laptop and when booting if i dont have it plugged into the ac adapter x wont load. It just shows a white screen with vertical green lines. Any help would be much appreciated thanks.

[DrHu]

OK, does the previous OS, I will presume windows work on that notebook under battery power ?

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=33561
--some context may help

Video/graphic problems are usually the result of bad driver selections, however since your notebook works on AC power, it is more likely a battery or power monitoring problem, power-save functions on the OS
-do you have suspend to ram, suspend to disk running (to save batter power), or do you start X (the desktop) with a large number of running applications/processes..

And maybe any additional information you could provide, such as it is a used notebook with a low number of cells battery (4-6cells), and naturally the batteries are old
--how do you charge the batteries, for example if you charge them from a fully drained state all the time or go over an 80% charge you will lessen the lifetime of the batteries.

My system..lxde mint 9
Other than facts such as these, some actual system data is needed..
In a terminal, check

Code: Select all

inxi -F

--you may or may not need to install inxi

Code: Select all

pt search inxi
i   inxi                            - System info script for irc (forked from in 

[cap'n jazz]

OK, does the previous OS, I will presume windows work on that notebook under battery power ?

It was Ubuntu 10.4 and it worked fine plugged and unplugged.

Video/graphic problems are usually the result of bad driver selections, however since your notebook works on AC power, it is more likely a battery or power monitoring problem, power-save functions on the OS
-do you have suspend to ram, suspend to disk running (to save batter power), or do you start X (the desktop) with a large number of running applications/processes..

No I don't have either of these set. Startup programs are minimal.

And maybe any additional information you could provide, such as it is a used notebook with a low number of cells battery (4-6cells), and naturally the batteries are old
--how do you charge the batteries, for example if you charge them from a fully drained state all the time or go over an 80% charge you will lessen the lifetime of the batteries.

I bought it new only two years ago. I have always fully cycled my batteries as I was under the impression it extended the life?

Other than facts such as these, some actual system data is needed..
In a terminal, check

Code: Select all
inxi -F

Here are the results:
System: Host Acer-Andes Kernel 2.6.32-21-generic i686 (32 bit) Distro Linux Mint 9 Isadora
CPU: Single core Mobile AMD Sempron 3500+ (UP) cache 512 KB flags (sse3 nx lm) bmips 3200.33 clocked at 1600.00 MHz
Graphics: Card ATI RS482 [Radeon Xpress 200M] X.Org 1.7.6 Res: 1280x800@59.9hz
GLX Renderer Mesa DRI R300 (RS400 5975) 20090101 x86/MMX+/3DNow!+/SSE2 NO-TCL DRI2 GLX Version 1.5 Mesa 7.7.1 Direct Rendering Yes
Audio: Card ATI IXP SB4x0 High Definition Audio Controller driver HDA Intel
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.21
Network: Card-1 Realtek RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ driver 8139too v: 0.9.28 at port a000
Card-2 Atheros AR2413 802.11bg NIC driver ath5k v: 0.6.0
Disks: HDD Total Size: 120.0GB (2.8% used) 1: /dev/sda Hitachi HTS54161 120.0GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 108G used: 3.1G (4%) fs: ext4 ID:swap-1 size: 2.88GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 57.0C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes 142 Uptime 2:16 Memory 263.1/937.9MB Client Shell inxi 1.3.2

[DrHu]

Whether or not it worked at some point-in-time under another OS (Ubuntu 10.4)
--your inxi -f data seems OK, looks as if you have a good graphic driver running etc..

So, it begins to seem like it is a battery charge problem
--I would be tackling the issue from that direction: unless someone else has some other idea..
http://www.daileyint.com/hmdpc/battery.htm

• Needs AC Adapter to boot? The first step in troubleshooting your laptop battery is determining whether it can hold enough charge to boot the notebook. Will the laptop power up and run on the battery, or does the AC adapter which doubles as the laptop battery charger need to be plugged in?
  Note also that we're using the term "boot" rather loosely here. If the laptop powers up on battery, you can hear the fans and the drives, your troubleshooting problem lies elsewhere.

[cap'n jazz]

Whether or not it worked at some point-in-time under another OS (Ubuntu 10.4)
--your inxi -f data seems OK, looks as if you have a good graphic driver running etc..

So, it begins to seem like it is a battery charge problem
--I would be tackling the issue from that direction: unless someone else has some other idea..
http://www.daileyint.com/hmdpc/battery.htm

• Needs AC Adapter to boot? The first step in troubleshooting your laptop battery is determining whether it can hold enough charge to boot the notebook. Will the laptop power up and run on the battery, or does the AC adapter which doubles as the laptop battery charger need to be plugged in?
  Note also that we're using the term "boot" rather loosely here. If the laptop powers up on battery, you can hear the fans and the drives, your troubleshooting problem lies elsewhere.

Well it does boot on battery power everything except graphics. Well I will try and figure something out with the battery thanks for giving me a step in the right direction.