[ltp] [OT] Replacement for T43p

[Rory Campbell-Lange]

On 20/12/09, Pedro Ribeiro (pedrib@gmail.com) wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Rory Campbell-Lange
> <rory@campbell-lange.net> wrote:
> > Please let me know, if you have the opportunity, what the battery
> > runtime is for a T400 under Linux.

> with a few tweaks (bluetooth off, ultrabay cd drive off, pccard and
> expresscard modules disabled, touchpad disabled in bios, fingerprint
> reader disabled, sata alpm on min_power, usb suspend on) I'm able to
> get 4 hours with wireless on and light websurfing load, and 4h30 hours
> with wireless off, reading pdf's.
> 
> For my normal work - 2 VM's running, Eclipse, Chrome with 30 tabs,
> Firefox with 5 tabs, lots of gnome-terminals open, music through
> speakers or headphone output, the average CPU load is around 20% (yes,
> these new core 2 are that powerful) and the battery lasts around than
> 3 hours.
> 
> This is on my T400 with a 6-cell battery, P8400 processor, LED screen
> at minimum acceptable brightness and Intel integrated graphics.
> 
> Also, I'm using the latest 2.6.32.2 kernel, it really makes a
> difference - with the setup above and wireless on, I was able to bring
> power consumption down from 18 watts in 2.6.30 to 16w in 2.6.31 and to
> 13w in 2.6.32.
> 
> With a 9-cell, I reckon you can get more than 6 hours battery life,
> with wireless on and a light load. If you're crazy enough, 9-cell +
> ultrabay should go for 9 hours.
> 
> In conclusion, I'm very happy with battery life, and I expect it to
> increase over time with newer kernel releases.

Hi Pedro

This is great feedback. Thanks very much. Could you confirm which screen
you have exactly? At the moment I see the following options on the
Lenovo site:

* 14.1 WXGA TFT, w/ CCFL Backlight  (1280x800)
* 14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ CCFL Backlight (1440x900)
* 14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ LED Backlight  (1440x900)

I take it from your comments that you have the last one?

Thanks also for your comments about power use and recent kernels. That
is seriously interesting and not something I knew about.

I would also be grateful for any comments about the 5100 or 5300 Intel
Wifi card (i.e. which is preferable), whether a 7200 rpm or 5200 rpm
disk is preferable or whether "Turbo Memory" is worth including.

On the subject of disk drives I've become very interested in SSDs. We've
started using them as the boot drives on some of our servers and they
work well. SSD for a new Thinkpad is enticing, and I assume it would
also produce some power savings? Interestingly the T400S has no SSD
option.

I note that the Lenovo price for an SSD is quite good. The well-regarded
OCZ/Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD comes in about GBP 300. To add an SSD to a
Thinkpad is about GBP 245 on top of about 60(?) for a 5400 rpm 160GB
standard drive. Any comments about the Lenovo supplied SSD?
(http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/07/08/review_storage_ssd_patriot_torqx/)

Thanks for all the excellent advice
Rory


-- 
Rory Campbell-Lange
rory@campbell-lange.net

Campbell-Lange Workshop
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