Lenovo T530 - Battery Warnings

[Joseph Mingrone]

Ian Smith <smithi at nimnet.asn.au> writes:

> On Fri, 14 Jun 2013 10:58:11 -0300, Joseph Mingrone wrote:
>
>  > I convinced a friend to try FreeBSD (9-STABLE amd64) on her Lenovo T530 and
>  > things are running quite well.  One problem is that, unlike other
>  > IBM/Lenovos, there is no beep to warn her when the battery is about to die.
>  > There is also no beep when (un)plugging the power.  Beeping does work before
>  > the OS is loaded (e.g. in the BIOS setup).  The BIOS version is 2.04.
>  > 
>  > Is there a fix for this?
>
> For AC<->battery changes, /etc/devd.conf already has devd perform:
>
> # Switch power profiles when the AC line state changes.  notify 10 { match
> "system" "ACPI"; match "subsystem" "ACAD"; action "/etc/rc.d/power_profile
> $notify"; };
>
> You won't need to mess with power_profile but it's instructive and logs power
> changes to /var/log/messages.
>
> If you made that, say: action "/etc/rc.d/power_profile $notify &&
> /root/my_script $notify";
>
> then my_script can do whatever, with or without using parameter $notify
>
> if '# kldload speaker && spkrtest' makes useful noises on the speaker, then it's
> easy to make up a couple of satisfactory and noticeable alert 'tunes'.  See
> speaker(4).  I used these for years on an old Compaq with APM, which also could
> be configured to run alerts at every 10% battery level change, charging or
> discharging, enabling such as suspend on low battery where that wasn't built in,
> or other actions to save power.
>
> devd.conf(5) as well as /etc/devd.conf shows:
>
>      ACPI Events related to the ACPI subsystem.  Subsystem ACAD AC line state
> ($notify=0x00 is offline, 0x01 is online).  Button Button state ($notify=0x00 is
> power, 0x01 is sleep).  CMBAT Battery events.  Lid Lid state ($notify=0x00 is
> closed, 0x01 is open).  Thermal Thermal zone events.
>
> with an example also for thermal overheating pending shutdown, but I'm yet to
> find examples of any CMBAT battery events, regarding your first concern.  That
> is, I've wondered about this myself ..
>
> Can anyone say, or point to, which ACPI CMBAT events get to devd?
>

After an upgrade to 9-STABLE, the speakers started working.  I followed
you advice Ian to get the tones when switching between battery and AC.

I also tried to play a sound when the battery enters a LOW state, but
hw.acpi.battery.state remains in 1 (discharging) until the battery runs
out of power.  A notification is triggered in devd when the battery hits
about 4%, but without a $notify I struggled to distinguish battery-related
events.  The solution I came up with is a bit of a hack, but it works (for now).
I run a cronjob to check the remaining power and if it's at or below 5%
play a warning.  Here is the script:
http://ftfl.ca:8080/admin/artifact/80e3121009ba836d1b6f57eda6207520b9807b63

Thanks again,

Joseph