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I have a Dell E6400 and have been using Ubuntu on this machine for just over a year. Previously I used 9.10 on 32bit. When I upgraded to use 10.04 I remained on 32bit and battery life seemed just fine. I changed to 64-bit and since then I get the "battery life is old" notification and the battery just doesnt last more than 20mins even with a full charge.

How would I tell which application is draining off the battery? Also is this a known issue?

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try installing powerTOP. Its an application by Intel, that analyses the syste,

open a terminal from Applicaions > Accessories > Terminal.

type in the following on the prompt:

sudo apt-get install powertop

enter your login password, and run it by typing sudo powertop in the terminal after it installs, since it need to run as root. It will show you what things are squeezing your CPU.

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  • Thank you! I can see that nviewer.bin is using most of the CPU, this would be the firefox flashplayer Top causes for wakeups: 22.5% (138.5) npviewer.bin 14.9% ( 91.7) [extra timer interrupt] 13.1% ( 80.7) [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick 12.4% ( 76.3) [ohci1394, eth1] <interrupt> 10.5% ( 64.7) [i915] <interrupt> 7.2% ( 44.5)D firefox-bin What would be the next be course of action?
    – bytesoup
    Nov 29, 2010 at 11:24
  • it seems that the stats are normal, there isnt any problem with those numbers. I guess the problem lies in the way ubuntu is using the processor. I am googling as we type, it should come up with something.
    – theTuxRacer
    Nov 29, 2010 at 11:31
  • take a look at forum.notebookreview.com/dell-latitude-vostro-precision/… It seems that this particular model has some issues with the battery, and misreports the current charge.
    – theTuxRacer
    Nov 29, 2010 at 11:34
  • I would have agreed but then the battery itself has a little 5-led display on it which you press a button to see charge level. This too seems to deplete at the same rate.
    – bytesoup
    Nov 29, 2010 at 12:24
  • oops, and u are using it since "just" over a year, which makes u ineligible for warranty, unless u had the extended cover. Try to get the battery changed. Does this happen with 64-bit windows, or 64-bit fedora?
    – theTuxRacer
    Nov 29, 2010 at 13:44

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