Acer 3820tg battery life

[redmorning]

Hi folks,

I bought my new laptop Acer 3820 tg 2 months ago. Installed a fresh ubuntu 10.04, dual boot with windows 7 (already installed). I had problems with brightness, microphone, headphones etc. i solved all of them (thanks to ubuntuforums). The last and one of the most important issue is the battery life. In windows i get more than 5 hours battery life but in ubuntu it is maximum 1 hour 35 min. This is probably related to graphic card that i use. I tried to activate "ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver", the result is, like already mentioned in many threads, blank screen after booting ubuntu. As i know there isn't a solution for this graphic driver yet. So now i'm using the intel.
I'm not sure and want to ask this if these subjects are related (battery life - graphic card) or not, is that the reason?
-If so and you already know a workaround please let me know.
-If not, what may cause the short battery life?

Everytime battery is full i plugout the laptop to keep battery live longer. (I'm not sure if this is a good strategy) So 1h 35 min, too short.

Thanks in advance.

[redmorning]

bump!

[f4lkon]

Hi. You have to disable the Radeon Card.

Open up Terminal and type

gedit timelinex_acpi.c

paste the following code inside and save.

/* 
 * timelinex_acpi.c
 * 
 * Linux kernel module that disables the discrete graphics board for Acer
 * Aspire TimelineX 3820TG (Core i5). Other TimelineX laptops could work, but I don't know.
 *
 * Based on the original lenovo_acpi.c by Sylvain Joyeux <sylvain.joyeux@m4x.org>, 2009
 */
#include <acpi/acpi.h>

MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");

static acpi_handle root_handle;

static int __init kill_ati(void)
{
    int i;
    acpi_status status;
    // The device handle
    acpi_handle handle;
    // The package elements
    union acpi_object package_elements[3];
    // The arguments to ATPX
    union acpi_object atpx_arg_elements[2];
    struct acpi_object_list atpx_arg;
    // For the return value of ATPX
    struct acpi_buffer buffer = { ACPI_ALLOCATE_BUFFER, NULL };

    status = acpi_get_handle(root_handle, "\\_SB.PCI0.P0P2.PEGP._OFF", &handle); //     status = acpi_get_handle(root_handle, "\\_SB_.PCI0.OVGA.ATPX", &handle);
    if (ACPI_FAILURE(status))
    {
        status = acpi_get_handle(root_handle, "\\_SB_.PCI0.OVGA.XTPX", &handle);
        if (ACPI_FAILURE(status))
        {
            printk("timelinex_acpi: cannot get ACPI handle: %s\n", acpi_format_exception(status));
            return -ENOSYS;
        }
        printk("timelinex_acpi: in discrete graphics mode\n");
        return 0;
    }

    for (i = 0; i < 3; ++i)
    {
        package_elements[i].type = ACPI_TYPE_INTEGER;
        package_elements[i].integer.value = 0;
    }

    atpx_arg.count = 0; //     atpx_arg.count = 2;
    atpx_arg.pointer = &atpx_arg_elements[0];

    atpx_arg_elements[0].type = ACPI_TYPE_INTEGER;
    atpx_arg_elements[0].integer.value = 2;

    atpx_arg_elements[1].type = ACPI_TYPE_PACKAGE;
    atpx_arg_elements[1].package.count = 3;
    atpx_arg_elements[1].package.elements = &package_elements[0];
    
    status = acpi_evaluate_object(handle, NULL, &atpx_arg, &buffer);
    if (ACPI_FAILURE(status))
    {
        printk("timelinex_acpi: ATPX method call failed: %s\n", acpi_format_exception(status));
        return -ENOSYS;
    }
    kfree(buffer.pointer);

    printk("timelinex_acpi: disabled the discrete graphics card\n");
    return 0;
}

static void dummy(void)
{
}

module_init(kill_ati);
module_exit(dummy);

Close the file timelinex_acpi.c and create a new file with

gedit Makefile

and paste following code inside

ifneq ($(KERNELRELEASE),)
  obj-m := timelinex_acpi.o
else
  KERNELDIR ?= /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build
  PWD := $(shell pwd)

default:
	$(MAKE) -C $(KERNELDIR) M=$(PWD) $(EXTRA_FLAGS) modules

clean:
	$(MAKE) -C $(KERNELDIR) M=$(PWD) $(EXTRA_FLAGS) clean

endif

save and close the Makefile. Now you have to type following:

make
sudo cp timelinex_acpi.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/

sudo depmod

echo timelinex_acpi | sudo tee -a /etc/modules > /dev/null

done. Deny Radeon module to start with

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

and add following string at the end

blacklist radeon

After reboot your Radeon is deactivated.

Now you can install TLP.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tlp

Start tlp with

sudo tlp bat
sudo tlp start

Now you should have an energy consumption between 10W and 12W in idle.

[redmorning]

f4lkon,

I followed your steps and saw the increasing time so fastly, now i'm testing it with

acpi -V

i calculated that it will be about 4 h 30 m, but not sure for now. Recharging it now and post the results here as soon as possible.

by the way,man, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, i'm really very happy. for all scripts, thank you.

i just want to ask; do i have to put this

sudo tlp bat
sudo tlp start

to startup to run them in every boot?

[f4lkon]

hi. once setuped it should be fine. set tlp into battery mode with sudo tlp bat. check the settings with tlp-stat. restart and check again with tlp-stat.

[redmorning]

thank you very much.

[ipcnx]

f4lkon, Thanks! You your post is very helpful to me.

[worldsayshi]

Confirming that f4lkon's solution is at least not harmful (to me anyway).

Telling from a short observation period, battery life seems significantly improved (5 hours estimated!) and temperature also seems to have dropped.

Thanks f4lkon!

Update: This can be harmfull, see below. Lately, f4lkon's solutions shouldn't be needed. Read on.

[redmorning]

f4lkon, i'm still grateful to you,

i just want to add a little remark;
In each kernel update you have to go through those steps again,

sudo tlp bat
sudo tlp start

is not enough, so delete old auto-created files and re-run necessary commands (just above).

[worldsayshi]

Ouch. Seems the solution may have caused some serious trouble after all, directly or indirectly. The latest kernel isn't booting. Running the old kernel works but leaves me with old battery consumption.
Unsure what to do...

Can I get the error output from booting the new kernel somehow? I can see errors on the screen as I boot. The bootup freezes after a long series of error messages.

Update2: This can be harmfull, see below. Lately, f4lkon's solutions shouldn't be needed. Read on.