weird knoppix laptop shutdown problem

Here's a weird problem for you.....
HP ze 4145 laptop running win xp pro and Knoppix 3.6 dual boot.
while running linux the laptop will randomly shut off when running on battery power even at like 85%, and WILL NOT START UP untill the charger is plugged back in. ( The laptop will not start when pressing the power button after this wierd shutdown!)
Windows XP will run without a problem untill the battery is completely dead.
My thoughts.........
1> Hardware problem....Yeah but why only in linux?...is Knoppix somehow overheating the hardware?
2> Virus..... But Linux has never been on the net because my netgear card won't work YET..and Windows is virus free as of AVG and no files have been transfered or accessed from hda1 to hda5.
3>Linux power options.... Are set to always be on, besides why shutdown at 85% or 45%?... this is a random shutdowm no matter what level the battery is... and it WILL NOT RESTART.
4> Bad battery.......just bought it 2 weeks ago. and XP does not have any problem running from the battery....
Any idea's?

I know you've got it installed but have a look here,

http://www.nicomachus.net/weblog/archives/000017.html

theres a few issues that this blokes encountered regarding the BIOS, maybe its some BIOS setting causing your laptop to act weird

i2c

I tought about the bios, and checked, didnt see anything odd. Why would windows not do random shutdowns if it was a bios setting?
One thing I didnt mention because I forgot about it.
This problem shortly started after I Inserted a backed up DVD into the laptop to see if it would play in linux. DVD's play fine in windows.
Could this be a kernel crash of some sort? and can the kernel effect the hardware in a way as to not let the machine to restart?

I would guess that maybe your problem lies with apm or acpi (whichever you're using) working with the bios. Try disabling one at boot time; i.e.

Code:

---

append="apm=on"

---

add the above to /etc/lilo.conf. You could also substitute acpi for apm to disable it. You might also find some answers at http://www.tuxmobil.org/
hth

I remember long ago when I installed (Slackware) Linux on my laptop. Under [the horrid] KDE, I remember a laptop battery option saying when to shut the computer down, maybe you accidentially put it at 85% (or somewhere around there?)

Try putting automatic shutdown to around 1% or 5% ?

I figured out what is happening although I don't know why.
Linux is chewing up my battery. Windows will show like 85% battery level, if I reboot into linux
I can work for about 10 minutes untill the laptop shuts down. I plug in the charger cable and boot to windows and it shows 0% battery level. This is a new battery and windows will run for like almost 2 hours on a full charge but linux will run for about 15 minutes on a full charge and I don't know why............

Yea sounds to me like the problem [WebCarnage] suggests, youll probably need to find some script and edit it i assume so that is shuts down only when it reachs a desirable threshold. I dunno whether this is of any use http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsamwel/laptop...ols/index.html but theres some stuff on there about linux on laptops, might be worth a read.

i2c

Perhaps it's the fact that the cdrom drive is running CONTANTLY from the time it starts up till it runs out of battery, plus the fact that the RAM is having the majority of itself running the OS itself, and this possibly takes more power...