Linux Kernel 3.0 Battery Life/Power Consumption

[bryanchicken]

thanks Bucic.
I do love linux (traditionally a ******* user but i made the switch) but this is really disappointing.
Despite making the switch i'm not one of those people that can be bothered compiling kernels and what-not, and i'm sure i'm not the only one.
Sandybridge hardware, i imagine, must be pretty commonplace what with it being the current Intel hardware. Thats a lot of people that this must be affecting, whether they've noticed or not.
I've no idea when the 3.3 kernel is due out but i think 12.04 should be put back until then.
Pangolin is a LTS release too. There will be people installing it and forgetting about it for years. Think how many extra watts of power that will be costing the earth!

When they say canonical will be patching for Pangolin. Do they mean it will be fixed in the 3.2 kernel supplied out of the box or do they mean they will be providing a fix for the user to sort out? The former is acceptable i guess

[Bucic]

I have no idea, sorry. Please refer to the queskion at Askubuntu.com
What is a realistic date for the kernel power regressions fixes?

Unfortunatelly it will be a long time before it gets fixed plus until then we'll have to deal with douches like this one http://www.fewt.com/2011/09/about-ke...sion-myth.html

[bryanchicken]

Wow, that is an angry guy!
I particularly like this bit:
"The remaining complaints Michael blindly points at the kernel are most likely configuration problems in the Ubuntu distribution itself (Unity or other application maybe), in the Xorg video driver stack shipping with Ubuntu, or operator error."

I can't pretend to understand all this stuff but i was running Ubuntu mini with no X running. The only package i installed above the mini distribution packages was openssh-server.
I still had massive power draw, so i highly doubt its Unity.

I actually did the i965 rc_6 grub command line fix mentioned earlier in the thread and it worked. Not experienced any glitches yet.

[Bucic]

Wow, that is an angry guy!
I particularly like this bit:
"The remaining complaints Michael blindly points at the kernel are most likely configuration problems in the Ubuntu distribution itself (Unity or other application maybe), in the Xorg video driver stack shipping with Ubuntu, or operator error."

I can't pretend to understand all this stuff but i was running Ubuntu mini with no X running. The only package i installed above the mini distribution packages was openssh-server.
I still had massive power draw, so i highly doubt its Unity.

I actually did the i965 rc_6 grub command line fix mentioned earlier in the thread and it worked. Not experienced any glitches yet.

You're making a mistake of even trying to discuss with his... assessments. The bug has been confirmed on launchpad.net by ubuntu devs plus there's a dedicated ubu wiki page for this particular issue and there some sorry #%@ specialist pop up like the issue itself wasn't PITA enough. It's not worth discussing here.

[fuduntu]

You're making a mistake of even trying to discuss with his... assessments. The bug has been confirmed on launchpad.net by ubuntu devs plus there's a dedicated ubu wiki page for this particular issue and there some sorry #%@ specialist pop up like the issue itself wasn't PITA enough. It's not worth discussing here.

So, I'm the guy that wrote the article and I have more experience with the issue than you can ever pretend to comprehend. You can discount it all you want, but I have proven the regression false on multiple occasions.

For example:

A T420 with the "regression" - 7 watts. - http://www.fuduntu.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1282

An ASUS U56E Laptop with the "regression" - 7 watts - http://www.fuduntu.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1520

The bug has been confirmed by people that don't comprehend the basics of configuration and testing, it is not a kernel problem it is a configuration problem. Is there room for power optimization in the kernel? Sure. Is there a regression? No.

If you look at the following data set with the claimed fix - you will find that the "fix" really didn't amount to much except in the case of a small number of machines - as I implied.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/PowerManagementASPM

Check out the T420 thinkpads with the "fix", 14.89W - 9.14W - 19.54W, see the pattern? They are all using too much power because they are all configured wrong. If I can make them use 7 watts with a simple configuration change. Hmm..

The test procedure isn't valid either, they should reboot the computer before testing for the baseline, and test with no apps running. Then do the same with the new kernel. They don't do that though, so there is no telling what was running before and what is running after.

There is also no collection of data used to gather the metrics so it can't be analyzed, meaning unfortunately that it is all invalid. Amateur test cases at best.

My ASUS (linked above) with the regression is currently sitting at 38 degrees Celsius, with Chromium, Thunderbird, Pidgin and a bunch of other apps running while connected to AC power.

I can see now how it is a kernel problem though, thanks for pointing it out, genius.

[fuduntu]

Wow, that is an angry guy!
I particularly like this bit:
"The remaining complaints Michael blindly points at the kernel are most likely configuration problems in the Ubuntu distribution itself (Unity or other application maybe), in the Xorg video driver stack shipping with Ubuntu, or operator error."

I can't pretend to understand all this stuff but i was running Ubuntu mini with no X running. The only package i installed above the mini distribution packages was openssh-server.
I still had massive power draw, so i highly doubt its Unity.

I actually did the i965 rc_6 grub command line fix mentioned earlier in the thread and it worked. Not experienced any glitches yet.

Angry because idiots flood the internets with stupid crap like Phoronix which leads users that aren't knowledgeable enough to know better to believe their doom and gloom sky is falling stories to be true.

[Bucic]

fuduntu
you may be right - we're not knowledgeable enough. That's why you should bring your findings up on launchpad, get devs attention and let us know how it went.

Second - are there some instructions written by you on dealing with the misconfigurations you claim are the cause for? Edit: I mean instructions that apply to a wider range of configurations (i.e. C2D platforms, not Sandy Bridge) and that are comprehensible by noobs?

[fuduntu]

fuduntu
you may be right - we're not knowledgeable enough. That's why you should bring your findings up on launchpad, get devs attention and let us know how it went.

Second - are there some instructions written by you on dealing with the misconfigurations you claim are the cause for?

If you read any of the articles or posts that I wrote, including the one you linked, you would have found instructions in every single one of them.

You may not be, but I am knowledgeable enough, so you should watch who you call names because sometimes that person knows far more than you do about the situation.

If anyone at Ubuntu / Launchpad wants to learn how to properly test this, they all know where to find me. I don't have an account at Launchpad, nor do I have any interest in creating one. I have enough work to do at Fuduntu.

[tushantin]

Fuduntu, your methods require the use of your distro, but unfortunately as I'm an end-user artist (not a programmer) it may be a while till I give it a serious try. However...

I'm using HP Mini 210, 32 bit, and according to the "latest fix", kernel 3.1 would still give me 11.7w of power consumption. I'm not even using Sandy Bridge, and that's still quite high.

How would you suggest to get it down to 8 or 7 watts?

[Bucic]

If you read any of the articles or posts that I wrote, including the one you linked, you would have found instructions in every single one of them.

You may not be, but I am knowledgeable enough, so you should watch who you call names because sometimes that person knows far more than you do about the situation.

If anyone at Ubuntu / Launchpad wants to learn how to properly test this, they all know where to find me. I don't have an account at Launchpad, nor do I have any interest in creating one. I have enough work to do at Fuduntu.

I'm asking because I see nothing special e.g. in that topic about T420. Just the usual grub line fixes everyone who faces the, let's call it excessive heating, has been juggling around with little success. On top of that you add installation of thinkfan. The last one seems obsolete to me as my fan runs at max (3000 RPM) all the time and it's unable to keep the CPU below 50 deg C. I hope now you understand my hesitation.