Not the usual type of support question but someone here might be able to help.
I have just succeeded in installing Ubuntu 18.04 with a cinnamon desktop on a Samsung Notbook3 about five years old. Very early on I disabled the bios boot order and have never been able to update from an early Mint mate set-up. Samsung and local IT chaps were useless without a Windows to work from. As a result the laptop has had little use and long periods of inactivity until I did a bit of gerfinger poken under the plastic. Machine now works beautifully with charger plugged in, charges the batteries until it reports full charge and about four hours left at mid-brightness screen. If I shut down and remove charger and fire up again the screen is very dark to the point it is difficult to use. Ii suspect the battery is duff but at £60 to replace it I'm loath to do that without some measured confirmation. Can anyone suggest a test procedure? I can get the case apart and have a meter but can't find any details of test points etc. I didn't check that the old set-up was still working properly before poking about so I can't be sure it is not a self induced problem (
Thanks for looking, Ken.
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See if it will give the expected off grid uptime, if it does, then when it is completely charged up,
remove the battery and leave it alone for a few days.
Install the battery and see if it still retains the full charge it had.
IF so, then something in the laptop is at fault.
IF not, then the battery is toast.
As these batteries age and with use, they will start to disintegrate internally.
This will leave little tiny bridges of "high resistance" between the cells.
( a really old battery will have lots of resistors bridging the cells)
That resistance will eventually drain the battery flat, even with a brand new manufactured battery ( although it will last a very long time in the fridge at 40°F)
do not freeze a Lithium Ion battery, nor subject it to extreme heat, nor to extreme physical forces.
I have a GoPro battery pack that was made for a Abrahms Army Tank back in the bad war with Hussein, it has corroded internally so bad, that white fuzzy stuff is leaking out of it.
the voltage across that battery pack is ZERO.
Ken Parkes wrote: ⤴Sun Jun 10, 2018 1:24 pm
Not the usual type of support question but someone here might be able to help.
I have just succeeded in installing Ubuntu 18.04 with a cinnamon desktop on a Samsung Notbook3 ....
This isn't really the right place to ask Ubuntu support questions. Mint is Ubuntu based but it's not the same exactly. Many issues that users think are DE related don't actually have anything to do with it ... in Linux, unlike WIndows, the DE is just another piece of app software as far as the OS is concerned.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
Hoser Rob wrote:
This isn't really the right place to ask Ubuntu support questions. Mint is Ubuntu based but it's not the same exactly. Many issues that users think are DE related don't actually have anything to do with it ... in Linux, unlike WIndows, the DE is just another piece of app software as far as the OS is concerned.
I've been using Mint since shortly after SuSE moved YaST to YaST2 which I found impossible, so I suppose it must have been in the early years. The only reason I've just installed Ubuntu on the laptop is to try out the gnome desktop, my copper delivers at around 300Kb/sec so I depend on Linux Format to give me the bigger distros. Didn't like the new gnome so switched to cinnamon pro tem. I have Sylvia on this machine and added this Ubuntu partition to check I don't have a dodgy DVD causing a problem. Fear not I'm not deserting.
ASgl1500 thanks for your advice. I ran a set of you tube film clips last night and a supposed fully charged battery ended up flat after three and a half hours.. Used to manage around eight hours and is purported to last about nine and a half, It's on charge now and I'll get it out when it's fully charged.. I find the sheer number of different battery types and the variation between bolt on and built in staggering. Makes the car industry look parsimonious.
Ken
Having taken the case apart and removed the battery for 48 hours I re-assembled this morning and the battery still had the same setting as before removing it. Since I don't like ubuntu I found an early copy of Mint 18.3 with Cinnamon and used it on the Ubuntu partitions. Rebooting on battery power the screen was at standard brightness and the same after updating and rebooting. Clearly the fault was with the installation. Serves me right. When I installed the first free DVD of Ububntu, posted in dozens on request, I had endless problems running it on an old dell desktop.
I tried a lot of distros before I settled on Mint Cinnamon. I am on my 2nd go 'round with it, started with 17.x Cinnamon and when 18.3 was released I did a new install.
Have never regretted that decision. I find the Power Manager in Mint to work for me pretty good.
what I really like is that I can click on the Battery symbol and change the screen brightness with the slider.
that goes a long way to getting more life out of the battery offline/offgrid.
I too am on a copper wire DSL but unlike most I live within 5,000 feet of the AT&T switch center so am living 'high on the hog' with 10.5 mbps most of the time.
I investigated ViaSat who can deliver 150 mbps to me, but, my wallet choked up tight when I saw the monthly rates.
(
