Just bought a new laptop (Compaq 311c, it's a netbook with an nVidia ION chipset) and put Windows 7 on there - installed all the HP / nVidia drivers on there but it's not showing any battery life remaining, just a percentage (which does change).

Got BattStat installed, which also isn't showing any sort of power-usage statistics (like it used to on my NC10)...

Any ideas on what could be wrong?

I've had that happen before, where it would only show the percentage, but it turned out that Windows needed a lot of time to calculate the time remaining, and it would show the time remaining a couple minutes later.

Left it on battery for ages to try - but it seems that HP took the circuitry out of the battery to cut costs.

time remaining is actually calcuated by two figures, the amount of voltage left in the battery, and the current dispersion rate. if your battery isn't showing the time, it might be busted. try draining it and then charging it to full.

Hmm, just realised on this laptop [loaned to me] it doesn't show either

But normally it's on mains anyway so it doesn't matter.

Known issue with HP laptops. Couldn't say if it's intented or not, though. Try using BatteryBar to get the remaining time to show up (http://osirisdevelopment.com/BatteryBar/). OR, don't buy HP laptops (which is the rule I would follow :tilt

You've checked details in power management i take it?