Linux Kernel 3.0 Battery Life/Power Consumption

[sbraz]

> i915.i915_enable_rc6=1

This was it. After rebooting with this kernel param my temperatures were lower than ever. Batter life seems at least as good as before.

these is very good news.

unfortunately this did not solve steevven1's problems.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...2&postcount=24

[sirverdemer]

Hi!
I tried the i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 and run powertop. The result is that I get better battery life, but not as good as with the 2.6.38 kernel.
Powertop tells me that, under 2.6.38 I get 9.8W, with Firefox open. Under 3.0 without thei915 setting, I get 15.3 W, while with it on I get 13.9 W. the machine is noticeably quieter, but still louder than with the 2.6.38 kernel... this is really strange.
Now, I will try the kernel you've put up here both with and without... hope that will work.
Thanks guys!

[wastedtime-fr]

these is very good news.

unfortunately this did not solve steevven1's problems.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...2&postcount=24

Isn't it a combination of new kernel + some boot time parameters that solved the problem?
Eikenberry, can you let us know?

Also, we have no news from steevven1 ?

[eikenberry]

Isn't it a combination of new kernel + some boot time parameters that solved the problem?
Eikenberry, can you let us know?

I'm running linux-image-3.0.0-1-amd64 (debian testing) with the kernel parameters "quiet pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1". I had pcie_aspm=force previously though by itself it made no difference with the problems I was having with the 3.0 kernel. I was seeing idle temperatures of around 50C w/ 3.0 vs 36C w/ 2.6.39. After adding i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 temperatures went back to normal and maybe even slightly lower. My system is an lenovo x220 with the i7.

I haven't been able to test wattage as I don't seem to get this display w/ powertop and there is no /proc/acpi/battery 'directory' to look at. I checked with it unplugged and I have acpid running. Is there some kernel module I'm missing that is needed to get this info? I'd be curious as to the actual watts vs just the temperatures.

[wastedtime-fr]

I'm running linux-image-3.0.0-1-amd64 (debian testing) with the kernel parameters "quiet pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1". I had pcie_aspm=force previously though by itself it made no difference with the problems I was having with the 3.0 kernel. I was seeing idle temperatures of around 50C w/ 3.0 vs 36C w/ 2.6.39. After adding i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 temperatures went back to normal and maybe even slightly lower. My system is an lenovo x220 with the i7.

I haven't been able to test wattage as I don't seem to get this display w/ powertop and there is no /proc/acpi/battery 'directory' to look at. I checked with it unplugged and I have acpid running. Is there some kernel module I'm missing that is needed to get this info? I'd be curious as to the actual watts vs just the temperatures.

Ok, so debian kernel + boot params is working OK.
Can you upload the config file for the debian kernel that is working for you so we can see the difference with the ubuntu one?
And for the battery info, hasn't that been moved in the "class" directory of (not too sure, not on my machine now) /proc or other special mount fs ?

[eikenberry]

I haven't been able to test wattage as I don't seem to get this display w/ powertop and there is no /proc/acpi/battery 'directory' to look at.

Didn't realize but proc/acpi is deprecated and debian ships with it disabled in their default kernel. There are other ways I'm looking into described in thinkwiki; http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to...er_consumption

After work I'll try those and see if I can get some wattage measurements to post.

[eikenberry]

Ok, so debian kernel + boot params is working OK.
Can you upload the config file for the debian kernel that is working for you so we can see the difference with the ubuntu one?
And for the battery info, hasn't that been moved in the "class" directory of (not too sure, not on my machine now) /proc or other special mount fs ?

The config is the stock debian kernel config, though I've still attached it for convenience.

Using /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/power_now as a bases I've done a bit of comparison. When left idle with all power saving settings being equal and assuming I're reading power_now right, 3.0 seems to use about .2-.3 more watts than 2.6.39. This might be due to the fan which would eventually spin down to stop on 2.6.39 and would continue to spin on 3.0 (which also might explain the slightly lower temps).

[steevven1]

Also, we have no news from steevven1 ?

I'm sorry. I am busy both with work and with other, more pressing computer issues right now. I still haven't been able to try the kernel. I do have it saved on my hard drive, and I still plan to try it unless there is some better solution proposed by the time I'm able to.

Some of the recent comments suggest that there may be some other issue at work here? I don't understand a lot of what's been said since the last time I posted in this thread :-/

Let me know if trying sbraz's kernel from post #62 is still a helpful thing to do and report back on.

[sbraz]

hey sorry for my silence i'm still following the topic, it's just that i'm busy trying linux mint debian edition... it's a total mess... very funny!

[steevven1]

Any news on this? If all goes well, I'll be trying the new kernel (by sbraz) in 24 hours.