battery not detected until ac-line is connected

[harryharryharry]

I am running LMDE xfce4 on a netbook (aspire one). and everything runs super, except for one little nuisance:
when I start Mint the battery is not detected (no matter if the ac-line is connected or not):
the command 'acpitool -B' gives:
harry@lmde-xfce /proc/acpi $ acpitool -B
Battery status : <not available>

Also the /proc/acpi shows no battery directory.
When I plug/unplug the ac-line, the problem is "solved", and the 'acpitool -B' gives:
harry@lmde-xfce /proc/acpi $ acpitool -B
Battery #1 : present
Remaining capacity : unknown, 75.19%, 01:48:21
Design capacity : 6600 mA
Last full capacity : 6567 mA, 99.50% of design capacity
Capacity loss : 0.5000%
Present rate : 902 mA
Charging state : Charging
Battery type : Li-ion
Model number : UM08A73
Serial number : 4246

And a battery directory is created instantly in /proc/acpi.
How can I resolve this issue ? Because at the moment I have no indication as to how much juice my device has left, unless I have a power cable nearby, which kind of defeats the purpose of knowing how much power I have left altogether
I tried to search different forums for the answer, but I am at a loss for search terms, and I don't really know if this is a debian issue, mint issue or xfce4 issue.

[harryharryharry]

update:
suspending the machine also helps. Surely there must be an easy fix/command to run at boot, so the battery gets recognized immediately? Does anybody have an idea ?

[dagon]

Has it worked like it should with other OS's or versions of Mint?
Is it brand new (looks like it from the printout...)

[harryharryharry]

Yes it has worked fine with other versions of linux (including other mint and debian based distros) and win7. I replaced my old battery with the current one almost a year ago (shipped in from China and surpasses all expectations). I came across this issue before but never really tried to fix it. I am quite pleased with lmde though so I am trying to iron out the kinks...

Somehow I suspect the solution isn't that hard, if suspend/resume does the trick already...

[dagon]

I replaced my old battery with the current one almost a year ago...

Did you experience this problem with your old battery?

harry@lmde-xfce /proc/acpi $ acpitool -B
Battery #1 : present
Remaining capacity : unknown, 75.19%, 01:48:21
Design capacity : 6600 mA
Last full capacity : 6567 mA, 99.50% of design capacity
Capacity loss : 0.5000%

0.5% capacity loss after a year?!

I've looked around and couldn't find anything close to what you're describing.

[harryharryharry]

@dagon

Did you experience this problem with your old battery?

Not that I can recall

0.5% capacity loss after a year?!

The "capacity loss" acpitool displays is apparently based on design capacity, when I bought the battery the capacity was however somewhere between 6700-6800 mA. so it's closer to 3% capacity loss after almost a year. Still very very acceptable though .

[harryharryharry]

@NealBracken

I don't really know what you are on about, is this the correct thread you are posting in ?