[George Cutrell]

Hardware: Dell Inspiron 9200 (4 years old)
OS: Windows XP

Problem: Windows XP power meter doesn't recognize battery

I just upgraded my hardrive from the original 40GB hard drive to a 160GB hard drive. As a result, I had to install Windows XP from scratch. The reinstallation CD that came with my Dell doesn't include hardware specific device drivers that I need. So I used another computer to download the drivers from Dell's support site - mainly the network, video, and BIOS drivers. This all seemed pretty straightforward until I attempted to install the BIOS and video drivers.

When I attempted to install the BIOS or the video drivers, the install seems to require that you have AC power and a certain amount battery power which it didn't think my machine had so it prevented me from installing those drivers. The main one I need is the video driver for the default drivers from Microsoft aren't cutting it; it can't get the high resolution that I want and the painting/refresh is pretty slow.

I poked around the power meter dialog and it doesn't seem to recognize that I even have a battery - it says "doesn't exist" on the dialog . And Windows XP seems to think that I'm running on AC power the whole time. The odd thing is I can put in my old 40GB hard drive which still works and that installation of Windows XP sees my battery just fine.

So, my question is how do I get Windows XP to recognize my battery? It can't be anything to do with the battery itself as the old Windows XP installation sees it just fine. I want to think that I need a special device driver or something but I don't know where to get it - or even if that is my problem. Nevertheless, my new installation of Windows XP on my new 160GB hard drive is pretty useless right now.

Thanks in advance.

George.

Edited by George Cutrell, 22 February 2009 - 05:10 PM.

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Hello George,

Did you install the chipset driver?

Go to Start>run... type in devmgmt.msc Can you post a screen shot of the Device Manager screen? (expand the window so everything shows up, if you need to) If you need a screen capture software, see Printscreen in my sig.

By the way, most laptops require a charged battery for updating Bios so I'm not suprised you got the error. However, unless there is a really good reason to update, like you want the new bios to fix something that's not working, I advise against it. Don't try to fix something that's already working as a failed Bios update will kill your laptop.

As for the video driver, I don't recall that you need a battery installed. Dells I've worked on never needed a battery to install this driver so I don't know whats up with that.

[makai]

Hello George,

Did you install the chipset driver?

Go to Start>run... type in devmgmt.msc Can you post a screen shot of the Device Manager screen? (expand the window so everything shows up, if you need to) If you need a screen capture software, see Printscreen in my sig.

By the way, most laptops require a charged battery for updating Bios so I'm not suprised you got the error. However, unless there is a really good reason to update, like you want the new bios to fix something that's not working, I advise against it. Don't try to fix something that's already working as a failed Bios update will kill your laptop.

As for the video driver, I don't recall that you need a battery installed. Dells I've worked on never needed a battery to install this driver so I don't know whats up with that.

[George Cutrell]

OK. Here are two attachments.

Attachment #1: Screen print of the Device Manager dialog.

Attachment #2: Screen print of the video driver install. You'll also see behind the install warning message the 2 video drivers. You're right. The ATI driver I was attempting was the ATI BIOS driver which was giving me the error. The ATI driver installed fine and I have the resolution I want/need there.

So the only issue remaining is the batter meter.

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[anzenketh]

George Cutrell,

Your battery is probably dead. It is vary rare that a battery last longer then 3-4 years. Depending on use.

[makai]

George Cutrell,

Your battery is probably dead. It is vary rare that a battery last longer then 3-4 years. Depending on use.

Even if the battery is dead, I would think windows would still see it. Besides that, windows on his 40gb HD sees the battery.

George,

What you might do is to uninstall the MS ACPI-Compliant Contro Method Battery entry in Device manager, then restart the machine and see if windows will reinstall and correct the issue. Beyond that, I'm not sure how to approach this, as Device manager seems to be correct as it displays the correct driver. Very wierd!

Let me know how it goes.