[Dunhamzzz]

After perusing the Dell Mini 9 Forums, it became apparent I wasn't the only person having some major battery charging issues with my Dell Mini 9, and specifically BIOS A05.

What's happening is that the battery charges as normal when the a/c is plugged in, but as soon as the battery is fully charged, the Mini 9 switches power supply to the battery and the battery won't actually charge the battery again until the Mini 9 has been restarted.
What's more interesting is that once its reached this draining state, it recognises the a/c being inserted/removed as the screen brightness adjusts as you do it, yet it still isn't recognised enough to start charging from it.

As I discovered in this thread its happening across different operating systems (at least XP and OS X) and the common denominator seems to be BIOS A05.

If you think your having some problems yourself, try using BatteryBar to give you detailed battery information, the free one will do everything necessary. If you do have a similar problem, let us know your Mini 9 configuration in the comments.

[hambubba]

I'm trying this right now, running down the battery as we speak. So far, no indication of the problem. Mini9, RC7, A05.

It does seem to have less battery life than before RC7, but I also updated the bios at about the same time. Testing, testing...

[fatmac]

Very strange, I can't reproduce this problem with A04 BIOS. AFAIC there's no reason to flash to A05.

[T-Keith]

I've notices similar issues, but I believe I am still using A04. I was thinking the power plug was actually bad. Sometimes I open it when plugged in and notice it is on battery power. Unplugging it and plugging it back in seems to fix it for me.

Ubuntu 9.04 BTW

[jrm]

is there a similar battery utility for osx? what is the easiest way to tell which bios is running?

[hambubba]

So far I have not seen the problem described. Battery always charges and discharges when it should. There may be other issues involved here.

[markb]

I regularly use my mini 9 (A05, Windows 7, 3G on) on battery power to run presentations with a LCD projector. The power drains quite quickly but all works as expected once I plug back into the mains.

[Dunhamzzz]

Originally Posted by jrm

is there a similar battery utility for osx? what is the easiest way to tell which bios is running?

Press 2 at boot to see the BIOS settings page which has the revision number on it.

I too had about 30mions less time with A05.
Is there a way to downgrade?

[Dr Some-what Evil]

I see it in the picture but will this replace the existing one that dell supplied? It offers much more information and allows the user to keep better track of the battery usage. If its not liked will it uninstall completely while leaving the original one intact? Just a few questions about it before i take the plunge and install it onto mine.

[Dunhamzzz]

Originally Posted by Dr Some-what Evil

I see it in the picture but will this replace the existing one that dell supplied? It offers much more information and allows the user to keep better track of the battery usage. If its not liked will it uninstall completely while leaving the original one intact? Just a few questions about it before i take the plunge and install it onto mine.

It's completely independent from the official Dell one.