thinkpad x60 Battery Life?(CoreDuo freq scaling problem?)

[Ari El]

Well, I could verify that the scaling actually works and makes a difference,
only when the laptop has a significative processor load (otherwise the
difference is not measurable).

As reported elsewhere, I also had some significative power consumption
reduction unloading most subsystems including USB, Wifi, IrDA, etc. This
improves the scenario but still the laptop draws about 9.5 to 10W average
with display set to level 3. I the same conditions winxp draws 7.5 and less,
which means 2.5 hours difference, way too much. And I don't have to turn off
the usb bus.

I tried recompiling Edgy kernel lowering the HZ parameter to 100;
consumption does not seem to be measurably affected; I also tried compiling
a 2.6.18.2 kernel, and this made a difference (about 1W less) however it
broke suspend and ipw3945 support.

After these tests my conclusion is that linux is great for my desktop, I
haven't booted into windows in my desktop for more than a year; but I have
to recognize that linux kernel is *sadly* not optimized for laptop use.
Really the kernel guys did an awesome job at supporting all the thinkpad
hardware, so I hope they will start focusing on power consumption for the
releases to come... Maybe some sort of laptop-optimized kernel profile or
something.

Thanks
A




Matthew Kuiken wrote:
> 
> Martin Willemoes Hansen wrote:
>> El dom, 29-10-2006 a las 12:05 -0800, Ari El escribió:
>>> Hi Paul,
>>>
>>>    I've been having the same battery life problem in my X60s for many
>>> months, with Dapper, and now the same with Edgy.
>> 
>> I can report the same with my HP nc4200, usually I got 3½ hours now I
>> only get about 1 hour.
>> 
>> Best regards
> 
> I have no idea if it is related, but my Sony Vaio doesn't do power save 
> well with the generic kernel.  I installed the -386 kernel, and the 
> on-demand power mode now sits at 1/2 speed most of the time, with 
> occasional spikes to full speed.  With the generic kernel, it was almost 
> always at full speed, with very occasional dips to 1/2.  The heat is 
> much less now, too.
> 
> I just realized, though.  You two probably won't want to use the -386 
> kernel, as I don't think it does SMP.  It might be a useful test anyway, 
> just to see if the power management works better.
> 
> -Matt
> 
> 
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