[ltp] Re: Z61p: 5.2h on windows and barely 3H on linux

[Marc MERLIN]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2007 at 06:25:41PM +0000, Volker Braun wrote:
> Thats an impressive battery drain, I'd suspect that the graphics is not 
> saving power. Did you try "aticonfig --set-powerstate=1" (on a non-buggy 
> fglrx driver version)? 

I hadn't done that, thanks. It saved me about 3W by taking the chip down
from 398/324Mhz to 209/135Mhz (it refuses to go down to 128/135Mhz).

This only takes me up to 3.8H, though, still short of the 5H on windows.

On Sat, Sep 29, 2007 at 10:42:56AM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > So, I have:
> > Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU         T7200  @ 2.00GHz
> > MemTotal: 2074120 kB
> > fglrx-kernel: 8.38.6-1
> > X.org: 7.2-0ubuntu11 (ubuntu feisty)
> > 2.6.22.1-libata-tj-20070803-p4smp-preempt-1khz-marc4
> 
> > I also run powernowd which brings the CPUs down to 1GHz, LCD is set to
> > minimum backlight, wireless is turned off.
> 
> > So, any idea why I can only get 2.8h out of a 9 cell extended battery while
> > windows on the same hardware gets a bit over 5h?
> > How long do you get on your comparable Z61 ?
> 
> Try powertop.  It may help you figure out the source of the consumption.

So, I have a tickless 2.6.22.1, and this is the output (before I slowed the graphics
chip down). I did everything powertop recommended, but I'm still getting a fairly high drain
compared to windows :-/

     PowerTOP version 1.8       (C) 2007 Intel Corporation

Cn                Avg residency       P-states (frequencies)
C0 (cpu running)        (29.3%)         2.00 Ghz    14.3%
C1                0.0ms ( 0.0%)         1.67 Ghz     0.2%
C2                0.2ms (11.6%)         1333 Mhz     0.5%
C3                0.7ms (59.1%)         1000 Mhz    85.0%


Wakeups-from-idle per second : 1458.3   interval: 10.0s
Power usage (ACPI estimate): 24.4W (3.2 hours) (long term: 25.5W,/3.1h)

Top causes for wakeups:
  22.5% ( 91.7)       <interrupt> : extra timer interrupt 
  15.9% ( 64.6)       <interrupt> : ahci, uhci_hcd:usb1, yenta, tifm_7xx1, fglrx, sdhci:slot0, eth0 
  12.1% ( 49.3)      S20powernowd : queue_delayed_work_on (delayed_work_timer_fn) 
   7.6% ( 31.0)           mplayer : schedule_timeout (process_timeout) 
   7.6% ( 30.8)              Xorg : do_setitimer (it_real_fn) 
   7.5% ( 30.7)     enlightenment : schedule_timeout (process_timeout) 
   6.9% ( 28.0)       <interrupt> : acpi 
   4.8% ( 19.5)     thinkpad-keys : do_nanosleep (hrtimer_wakeup) 
   4.6% ( 18.6)           mplayer : do_nanosleep (hrtimer_wakeup) 
   2.7% ( 10.8)       <interrupt> : uhci_hcd:usb2, ohci1394, ipw3945, HDA Intel 
   1.6% (  6.5)       <interrupt> : PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad
   1.2% (  5.0)            dhcdbd : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0.9% (  3.5)         Eterm.bin : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0.5% (  2.0)        sancho-bin : futex_wait (hrtimer_wakeup)
   0.4% (  1.5)     <kernel core> : queue_delayed_work_on (delayed_work_timer_fn)
   0.4% (  1.5)       lid.sh.post : queue_delayed_work_on (delayed_work_timer_fn)
   0.3% (  1.1)     <kernel core> : neigh_table_init_no_netlink (neigh_periodic_timer)
   0.2% (  1.0)              tail : do_nanosleep (hrtimer_wakeup)
   0.2% (  1.0)        atieventsd : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)


> - wifi consumption is much lower when the mode is loaded and it is in
>   power-save mode.  I.e. it consumes less when enabled than when disabled.
>   There's almost 1W difference.

How do you turn off wifi outside of ifconfig eth1 down?
Turning off the wifi chip with the shutoff switch on the laptop saves 1.5 watts.

> - the fglrx driver has powersaving features which may not be automatically
>   used (and/or may not automatically be preserved across console switches
>   or suspend/hibernate).  So try to make sure they're used.
>   Furthermore, I found that the VESA driver consumes significantly
>   less power.

Indeed, the ati command helped. 

> On my T60, I can get the powerconsumption (with Debian testing, but that
> shouldn't make much difference in this respect) pretty much to the level
> I got under WinXP (before I removed XP, that is) ;-)

I'm still at least 1H of short of that I'm afraid :-/
(and I was getting 4.2h on my T41p with somewhat smaller batteries: 72Wh vs
85Wh)

Thanks for the tips in the meantime though, I did get closer.

Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/