Poweroff OR Battery indicator - Can I have BOTH?

[wftomlin]

I have a Gateway 400VTX. I've installed ubuntu 8.04 and am GENERALLY happy with it. But, I'm having a problem.

When I try to shutdown the computer, it reboots and powers back up. I have to shut it down by holding the power button down, and the next time I power up, it sometimes hangs.

If I change the menu.lst file and add acpi=off, it will power off by clicking the "off" button in the top (gnome) panel, but when I boot back up, there is no "battery indicator".

I've used every combination of:

acpi=on, acpi=off, acpi=force, apm=power_on, apm=power_off

and can't get it to power off AND show me how much battery power I have left.

Is this possible? I have Ubuntu on two desktops and am really comfortable with them. I don't want to have to switch distros, and I REALLY don't want to go back to windoze on the laptop. But, I don't think physically shutting it down is a good idea, and I NEED to know how much power I have remaining?

HELP!!!