switching to battery mode while plugged in

Can't help much, but I have a similar A75 laptop, and I do not experience this behavior, with 6,04 beta 4 and the latest kernel. Neither did I experience it with older kernels. It sure sounds like a hardware issue, but you say it does not do this with Windows. Ever consider upgrading to 6.0?

Rich

I also have a toshiba laptop and it does the same thing. I've never really figured out why. As stated above, when running windows i never had the problem. my quick fix is: I generally just unplug the power adapter and plug it back into the back of the laptop and it solves it.

My old Dell Inspiron did the same thing. My New one has a better power connector. The old one had a stupid, square, wiggly connector that was DESIGNED with too much play in it. Over the years that I had the computer, I think the not-so-positive connections not only burned out my battery but the internal power supply may be toast.

So I would suspect a "hardware problem" on this one

Jon

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Another reason why I dont think its hardware problem is because the light indicates being plugged in and running on battery at the same time. There are three lights on my Toshiba: one indicates being plugged in, second indicates being turned on and, third indicates running on battery/powerjack.

The one indicating power jack being in works as its supposed to. It shows that the computer is plugged in, but the the third light shows that it runs on battery. This is a combination of lights that I never had when running windows.

thanks anyway though

but unlike all the other answers, I found the root cause. I was using an after market external power supply that was breaking down under the strain of running at basically 100% while when I was in Mepis. It had a rating equal to my factory unit, but it was not putting out the goods.

The power supply eventually gave out altogether and I got a replacement with a higher output that has not failed since.

My suggestion, find a universal power supply with a higher rating. My original PSU provides 15v at 3.95 amps. I purchased a PSU capable of 15v at 5 amps and have never had any issues since.

Try another power supply. If your power management has not been correctly configured, your laptop will run the processor and all circuitry at full speed 100% of the time while it is plugged in, which is a huge drag on your external power supply.

I have since adjusted my laptops power usage when idle, and I'm using the latest beta, which seems to respond better regarding power management, but I may be looking at it with rose colored spectacles.

Mike P

--------------------
Life may not be the party we thought, but while we're here, we may as well dance.
Break M$'s shackles from your feet and free yourself with Mepis

So it was a hardware problem, the power supply.

Rich

I can vouch for that. I installed SimplyMEPIS 6.0-4 on my wife's laptop (an old 300mhz PII Mobile with 256MB of RAM), and power management seems much better in the beta compared to the old 3.4.3 it was running.

With older versions (3.3.x, 3.4.x,) I needed to use acpi=off. Otherwise, the cooling fan would stay at the same state it booted into. For example, if it was off when you boot, it would stay off (eventually leading to overheating). Or, if it was on at boot, it would stay on.

acpi=off fixed that issue (cooling fan cycled like it should). But, it did tend to stay on a lot if anything much was running on it.

With 6.0-4 Beta 4, I don't have to use acpi=off (cooling fan cycles fine without this option). In addition, the fan is running less often now (which would also have the benefit of less power drain).

My wife seems happy with it so far. It's a tad slow on it (as you'd expect trying to run a newer OS on an old PII Mobile based laptop). But, it seems solid as a rock with no issues at all with power management.

I was hesitant to install the new version on a laptop this old. But, now that I have, I'm glad I did.

Jim C.