[ltp] comprehensive list of things to monitor for battery consumption

linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:55:22 -0500


I'm trying to figure out why my run-from-battery times are (about
20%) lower under Linux than Windows.  I started working on a small
script to periodically monitor system attributes.  I was hoping that
the list could possibly help me come up with a complete (or
near-complete) list of items to watch.

FWIW, I have a Thinkpad T43 2668-89U.  Some of the items below are
hardware specific (e.g. Ati video card).

I'll certainly publish the script when it's done (or at least at the
"working for me" stage :)

Thanks!
Matt


Here's what I have so far:

/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state
    - grep for "present rate"
    - shows current battery power draw

iwconfig <wireless_device>
    - grep for "Power Management"
    - shows wireless device's power management state

/proc/acpi/processor/CPU/power
    - grep for "bus master activity"
    - shows bus activity (?)

/proc/loaavg
    - shows system load average for last 1, 5 and 15 minutes

/proc/cpuinfo
    - grep for "cpu MHz"
    - shows current processor speed

hdparm -C <hard_drive_device>
    - grep for " drive state is"
    - shows current power management mode of ide/sata drives

/proc/acpi/ibm/thermal
    - shows various component temperatures

rovclock -i
    - grep for "Core"
    - gives current ATi GPU & memory speed

radeontool light
    - last word is "on" or "off"
    - shows whether or not the LCD backlight is on (ATI only)

radeontool dac
    - last word is "on" or "off"
    - shows whether or not the external VGA port is on or off (ATI
      only)