FreeBSD: APM not working on Dell Inspiron 3500

I've been running FreeBSD (recently upgraded to 6.2) on my Dell Inspiron 3500 w/ the Phoenix BIOS 4.0 Release 6.0 for some time now, but could never get APM (Advanced Power Management) to work. When I had a spare hour or two I'd research this topic to no avail. Today the pieces came together.

Problem: I wanted to see my battery level but couldn't.

Each time I would try to run apm to see my battery status I would get:

APM; /dev/apm: No such file or directory

Resolution:

Modified /boot/loader.conf to include the lines:


apm_load="YES"
hw.acpi.verbose=1
hint.acpi.0.disabled=0


and rebooted the laptop.

Now when I type apm I see:


APM version: 1.2
APM Management: Enabled
AC Line status: off-line
Battery Status: high
Remaining battery life: 99%
Remaining battery time: unknown
Number of batteries: 2
Battery 0:
Battery Status: high
Remaining battery life: 100%
Remaining battery time: unknown
Battery 1:
Battery Status: high
Remaining battery life: 98%
Remaining battery time: unknown