Thinkpads Forum

Hi guys,

Recently I've been setting up a T60 for a friend and since his has an almost identical configuration to mine, I couldn't help myself but made some comparisons. What got me wondering was the power consumption.

They are both 14.1" SXGA+ models with integrated graphics, Intel Wifi, Bluetooth and no WWAN. They differ in CPUs and RAM.

My T60 has a Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM and it has a fingerprint reader.
The other one has a Core Duo T2300 1.6Ghz CPU and 1GB of RAM. No reader on this one.

I tested the power consumption by watching the consumed watts in the Power Manager when idling on batteries with radio off and the lowest LCD brightness. Optical drive bay was empty. No accessories were connected. Because of the similarity, I used my friend's HDD with a fresh Windows XP installation (subsequently booted both machines from the same HDD). Optimized power source profile was set and BIOS settings were identical.

The results: the lowest power consumption in my T60 was 11 W. On my friends ThinkPad it went as low as 9 W.

Do you think it's possible that the slightly faster CPU and additional 1GB of RAM consume 2 W?

Is 2W a great difference? BTW, faster processor (of the same series/architecture) certainly eats more current.

Try to disable FingerPrint reader. It's connected to USB and active USB may use 2-2.5W.

The processors use exactly the same amount of battery when they're in idle power saving mode. Try switching the palmrest with the fingerprint reader and see if that makes any difference. Also try switching batteries, it may make a difference.

yak wrote:Do you think it's possible that the slightly faster CPU and additional 1GB of RAM consume 2 W?

The CPU won't make a difference as they'll both drop to 1GHz and 0.95V vcore at idle. However, if the extra RAM is on a separate module (two modules compared with one) then it would definitely draw extra power, yes.

2W? I wouldn't think so but if the meter rounds up to the next integer then maybe.