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some more X210 related stuff (C states, BIOS, EC)

Old(er) Thinkpads with New(er) Intestines: X62/T50/T70/X210/X330 etc.
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tadec
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 03, 2021 9:09 am
Location: Prague, Czech Republic

some more X210 related stuff (C states, BIOS, EC)

#1 Post by tadec » Thu Feb 11, 2021 1:03 pm

Hi! I am still trying to figure out some stuff about my X210 I got recently, especially as far as power management goes. Excuse my inexperience, I just bought it because I like old thinkpads and have a lot of tinkering to do before I can figure those problems on my own; so:

The machine is the 8250U version and compared to the T480 (same cpu) I owned previously, it does pretty bad in the battery life department. I can't get W consumption digits in powertop, but according to the KDE energy info (which might very well be inaccurate, but does match to the fact that the laptop lasts around 5hrs of use with the 57Wh battery), the machine operates at around 11W on average, which seems high considering my usage (browser, word processing, sometimes video playback). It also stays around those numbers almost no matter what I do, hovering in between 7 and 12 W. That seems a little high to my liking, and people around here report idle states of 3.8W which I can't seem to get.

What can be done about that? I think I've read every X210 related topic here (+ what was covered here) and applied all the tweaks I was confident enough for - disabling the C state limit set in the bios (auto >> manuf default), setting up ASPM and L1 states for all the root ports in the bios and enabling C1&3 cpu states.

Despite that, the power consumption is what it is, also

Code: Select all

 lspci -vvv | grep aspm
prints nothing. Is this because of the ethernet driver issues? I found conflicting information about whether r8169 or r8168 should be used, also found some patches to both, but I don't know how should I apply those.

I also don't think that the package reaches lower C states (or too many wakeups occur, idk), but I can't check as the powertop output doesn't work properly. Would this, possibly as well as the non-working thinklight controls and thinkvanatge button, be fixed by the community BIOS patch to the embedded controller from the xyte.ch link above? I am a little scared about updating the bios on this machine by myself (the procedure is a lot less straightforward compared to an ordinary thinkpad), but I could probably find someone who could help me.

Any other X210 tips are well appreciated, I hope someone here could be of help. Many thanks for reading all this!

flyingfishfinger
Junior Member
Junior Member
Posts: 404
Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2012 5:42 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Re: some more X210 related stuff (C states, BIOS, EC)

#2 Post by flyingfishfinger » Thu Feb 11, 2021 5:32 pm

Hi,
The wrong / no Realtek driver will definitely prevent your board from getting into deeper power-saving modes, among other things. Here's my comment in the thread in question - read the preceding part of the thread for more information. This should put you on the right track.

Good luck,
R

L29Ah
Sophomore Member
Posts: 180
Joined: Fri Sep 06, 2013 2:25 pm
Location: Montenegro

Re: some more X210 related stuff (C states, BIOS, EC)

#3 Post by L29Ah » Thu Feb 11, 2021 8:23 pm

tadec wrote:
Thu Feb 11, 2021 1:03 pm
also

Code: Select all

 lspci -vvv | grep aspm
prints nothing. Is this because of the ethernet driver issues?
grep -i aspm
51nb X210 with community EC mod, me_cleaner and recelled 99W*h battery; X230 with coreboot, me_cleaner and nitrocaster's FHD mod as a backup; R500 for guests; T60 just for the looks.

Yao2000
Freshman Member
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:15 am
Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Re: some more X210 related stuff (C states, BIOS, EC)

#4 Post by Yao2000 » Thu Feb 11, 2021 8:37 pm

tadec wrote:
Thu Feb 11, 2021 1:03 pm
Hi! I am still trying to figure out some stuff about my X210 I got recently, especially as far as power management goes. Excuse my inexperience, I just bought it because I like old thinkpads and have a lot of tinkering to do before I can figure those problems on my own; so:

The machine is the 8250U version and compared to the T480 (same cpu) I owned previously, it does pretty bad in the battery life department. I can't get W consumption digits in powertop, but according to the KDE energy info (which might very well be inaccurate, but does match to the fact that the laptop lasts around 5hrs of use with the 57Wh battery), the machine operates at around 11W on average, which seems high considering my usage (browser, word processing, sometimes video playback). It also stays around those numbers almost no matter what I do, hovering in between 7 and 12 W. That seems a little high to my liking, and people around here report idle states of 3.8W which I can't seem to get.

What can be done about that? I think I've read every X210 related topic here (+ what was covered here) and applied all the tweaks I was confident enough for - disabling the C state limit set in the bios (auto >> manuf default), setting up ASPM and L1 states for all the root ports in the bios and enabling C1&3 cpu states.

Despite that, the power consumption is what it is, also

Code: Select all

 lspci -vvv | grep aspm
prints nothing. Is this because of the ethernet driver issues? I found conflicting information about whether r8169 or r8168 should be used, also found some patches to both, but I don't know how should I apply those.

I also don't think that the package reaches lower C states (or too many wakeups occur, idk), but I can't check as the powertop output doesn't work properly. Would this, possibly as well as the non-working thinklight controls and thinkvanatge button, be fixed by the community BIOS patch to the embedded controller from the xyte.ch link above? I am a little scared about updating the bios on this machine by myself (the procedure is a lot less straightforward compared to an ordinary thinkpad), but I could probably find someone who could help me.

Any other X210 tips are well appreciated, I hope someone here could be of help. Many thanks for reading all this!
great post. i might have a i5-8250u X210 coming and i want to tweak it to get it running well too. I will be running Windows 10 mostly though.

Yao2000
Freshman Member
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:15 am
Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Re: some more X210 related stuff (C states, BIOS, EC)

#5 Post by Yao2000 » Thu Feb 11, 2021 8:38 pm

I will carefully flash the latest BIOS first.

Is yours a 1st batch or 2nd batch X210 i5-8250u motherboard?

Yao2000
Freshman Member
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:15 am
Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Re: some more X210 related stuff (C states, BIOS, EC)

#6 Post by Yao2000 » Thu Feb 11, 2021 8:40 pm

flyingfishfinger wrote:
Thu Feb 11, 2021 5:32 pm
Hi,
The wrong / no Realtek driver will definitely prevent your board from getting into deeper power-saving modes, among other things. Here's my comment in the thread in question - read the preceding part of the thread for more information. This should put you on the right track.

Good luck,
R
hello flyingfish,

which X210 do you have? 1st or 2nd batch i5 motherboard? if so, where can we get the latest BIOS for this motherboard. any info and help here will be great. thank you.

tadec
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 03, 2021 9:09 am
Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Re: some more X210 related stuff (C states, BIOS, EC)

#7 Post by tadec » Fri Feb 12, 2021 3:28 am

flyingfishfinger wrote:
Thu Feb 11, 2021 5:32 pm
Hi,
The wrong / no Realtek driver will definitely prevent your board from getting into deeper power-saving modes, among other things. Here's my comment in the thread in question - read the preceding part of the thread for more information. This should put you on the right track.

Good luck,
R
Thanks for linking. As I understood it from the thread, the i915 patch to get PSR is not viable with a 1920x1200p screen, so I skipped that. I proceeded to blacklist the r8169 module and reinstall r8168. When I grep it from lsmod, it's enabled. Then I tried (as root):
L29Ah wrote:
Thu Feb 11, 2021 8:23 pm
grep -i aspm
Thanks L29Ah! Now the output is following:

Code: Select all

# lspci -vvv | grep -i aspm
                LnkCap: Port #3, Speed 8GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Exit Latency L0s <1us, L1 <16us
                        ClockPM- Surprise- LLActRep+ BwNot+ ASPMOptComp+
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
                LnkCap: Port #4, Speed 8GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Exit Latency L0s <1us, L1 <16us
                        ClockPM- Surprise- LLActRep+ BwNot+ ASPMOptComp+
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
                L1SubCap: PCI-PM_L1.2+ PCI-PM_L1.1+ ASPM_L1.2+ ASPM_L1.1+ L1_PM_Substates+
                L1SubCtl1: PCI-PM_L1.2+ PCI-PM_L1.1+ ASPM_L1.2+ ASPM_L1.1+
                LnkCap: Port #9, Speed 8GT/s, Width x4, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <16us
                        ClockPM- Surprise- LLActRep+ BwNot+ ASPMOptComp+
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
                L1SubCap: PCI-PM_L1.2+ PCI-PM_L1.1+ ASPM_L1.2+ ASPM_L1.1+ L1_PM_Substates+
                L1SubCtl1: PCI-PM_L1.2+ PCI-PM_L1.1+ ASPM_L1.2+ ASPM_L1.1+
                LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Exit Latency L0s unlimited, L1 <64us
                        ClockPM+ Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot- ASPMOptComp+
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
                L1SubCap: PCI-PM_L1.2+ PCI-PM_L1.1+ ASPM_L1.2+ ASPM_L1.1+ L1_PM_Substates+
                L1SubCtl1: PCI-PM_L1.2- PCI-PM_L1.1- ASPM_L1.2- ASPM_L1.1-
                LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Exit Latency L0s <4us, L1 <32us
                        ClockPM+ Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot- ASPMOptComp-
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
                LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 8GT/s, Width x4, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <64us
                        ClockPM- Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot- ASPMOptComp+
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
                L1SubCap: PCI-PM_L1.2+ PCI-PM_L1.1+ ASPM_L1.2+ ASPM_L1.1+ L1_PM_Substates+
                L1SubCtl1: PCI-PM_L1.2+ PCI-PM_L1.1+ ASPM_L1.2+ ASPM_L1.1+
Does this look good? The power consumption doesn't seem to be much better, but It's too soon to tell maybe. Can I somehow check if ASPM, even though enabled, is active? Or check the current c state without powertop, as I have yet to patch the bios?

I noticed in the previous thread that you (L29Ah) took part in developing the EC patch, could you please help me out with some guidance as to how to apply it in a most noob-friendly way? Based on this page, I gather I can download the already patched 12 Jan BIOS from the page and run the .BAT file from windows (I would make a win10 partition for this), but the xyueao eplicitly says, tht those instructions don't work for the community BIOS and I don't feel knowledgeable enough to do it through flashrom.

Anyway, thank you both guys!
Yao2000 wrote:
Thu Feb 11, 2021 8:38 pm
I will carefully flash the latest BIOS first.

Is yours a 1st batch or 2nd batch X210 i5-8250u motherboard?
I don't know how do I tell, I am not the first owner. Good luck with your new machine! I am pretty sure that the latest available BIOS can be had here

tadec
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 03, 2021 9:09 am
Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Re: some more X210 related stuff (C states, BIOS, EC)

#8 Post by tadec » Tue Feb 16, 2021 5:30 pm

Hi, so I think that I've managed (some) progress. The only tool that works for the machine as far as reporting of c states is concerned is powerstat. If its output is to be believed (and this is an if - could the readings be flawed significantly?), nothing is stopping the machine from reaching C10, which i guess is good news. Worse news is that the idle power consumption is still high - does this mean that I should look elsewhere (than CPU) for further power saving tweaks? PSR is out for my screen afaik, ASPM is already working as established in the previous post. Might the bios update help? I don't want to do it yet as I have no clue whether the laptop is 1st, second or 3rd batch and therefore whether the update is even compatible. Expensive brick is the last think I want the X210 to become ofc :mrgreen:

Anyway, the powerstat output:

Code: Select all

Running for 500.0 seconds (50 samples at 10.0 second intervals).
Power measurements will start in 180 seconds time.

  Time    User  Nice   Sys  Idle    IO  Run Ctxt/s  IRQ/s  Watts               
21:55:40   2.7   0.0   1.1  96.1   0.0    1    678    319   7.77 
21:55:50   2.9   0.0   1.0  96.0   0.0    1    728    354   5.26 
21:56:00   2.8   0.0   1.0  96.2   0.0    1    698    322   5.19 
21:56:10   2.9   0.0   1.1  96.0   0.0    1    712    334   3.18 
21:56:20   2.7   0.0   1.1  96.1   0.0    1    691    324   3.12 
21:56:30   2.8   0.0   1.0  96.1   0.0    1    700    328   6.19 
21:56:40   2.8   0.0   1.0  96.2   0.0    1    696    328   6.36 
21:56:50   2.7   0.0   1.1  96.2   0.0    1    695    328   6.53 
21:57:00   2.6   0.0   1.1  96.3   0.0    1    695    332   8.16 
21:57:10   2.8   0.0   1.1  96.1   0.0    1    696    336   8.08 
21:57:20   3.0   0.0   1.2  95.7   0.0    1    698    359   7.34 
21:57:30   2.9   0.0   1.2  95.8   0.0    2    679    332   6.69 
21:57:40   2.9   0.0   1.1  96.0   0.0    2    677    321   6.98 
21:57:50   2.9   0.0   1.2  95.9   0.0    1    671    336   6.14 
21:58:00   3.0   0.0   1.2  95.8   0.0    1    676    349   5.91 
21:58:10   3.0   0.0   1.2  95.8   0.0    1    695    349   7.06 
21:58:20   3.0   0.0   1.2  95.7   0.0    1    676    335  11.77 
21:58:30   2.8   0.0   1.2  95.9   0.0    1    682    338   7.29 
21:58:40   3.1   0.0   1.2  95.7   0.0    1    722    352   9.33 
21:58:50   3.1   0.0   1.2  95.7   0.0    1    672    330  10.32 
21:59:00   3.0   0.0   1.2  95.8   0.0    1    667    326   7.06 
21:59:10   2.8   0.0   1.2  95.9   0.0    1    691    338   5.68 
21:59:20   2.8   0.0   1.1  96.1   0.0    1    708    352   5.91 
21:59:30   2.7   0.0   1.1  96.3   0.0    1    675    318   7.13 
21:59:40   2.8   0.0   1.1  96.1   0.0    2    681    324   9.77 
21:59:50   2.8   0.0   1.1  96.1   0.0    2    689    335  10.53 
22:00:00   2.7   0.0   1.1  96.2   0.0    1    691    324  10.98 
22:00:10   2.8   0.0   1.0  96.1   0.0    1    706    336  11.50 
22:00:20   2.8   0.0   1.2  96.0   0.0    1    694    318  10.74 
22:00:30   2.9   0.0   1.1  96.0   0.0    2    694    321   5.06 
22:00:40   2.8   0.0   1.1  96.2   0.0    1    698    323   7.35 
22:00:50   2.9   0.0   1.0  96.1   0.0    2    677    315   5.82 
22:01:00   2.8   0.0   1.0  96.2   0.0    2    688    327   5.97 
22:01:10   2.8   0.0   1.1  96.0   0.0    2    717    342   7.50 
22:01:20   2.9   0.0   1.2  95.8   0.0    1    740    361   7.42 
  Time    User  Nice   Sys  Idle    IO  Run Ctxt/s  IRQ/s  Watts
22:01:30   2.8   0.0   1.2  96.0   0.0    1    682    328   6.89 
22:01:40   2.8   0.0   1.2  95.9   0.0    1    684    328   6.74 
22:01:50   2.9   0.0   1.2  95.9   0.0    1    678    346   4.17 
22:02:00   3.1   0.0   1.2  95.7   0.0    1    671    335   3.12 
22:02:10   3.0   0.0   1.2  95.8   0.0    1    694    346   7.84 
22:02:20   3.2   0.0   1.2  95.6   0.0    1    692    371   4.54 
22:02:30   3.1   0.0   1.2  95.7   0.0    1    684    360   5.89 
22:02:40   3.1   0.0   1.1  95.7   0.0    1    684    340   5.68 
22:02:50   3.3   0.0   1.2  95.5   0.0    1    705    352   6.14 
22:03:00   3.2   0.0   1.2  95.6   0.0    2    687    358   6.43 
22:03:10   3.1   0.0   1.3  95.6   0.0    1    705    369   4.93 
22:03:20   2.9   0.0   1.1  96.0   0.0    1    703    346   6.89 
22:03:30   2.7   0.0   1.1  96.2   0.0    1    688    324  10.99 
22:03:40   2.6   0.0   1.1  96.3   0.0    1    697    328  11.36 
22:03:50   2.7   0.0   1.1  96.1   0.0    1    697    344  10.54 
-------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ------ 
 Average   2.9   0.0   1.1  96.0   0.0  1.2  692.1  336.9   7.18 
 GeoMean   2.9   0.0   1.1  96.0   0.0  1.1  692.0  336.6   6.84 
  StdDev   0.2   0.0   0.1   0.2   0.0  0.4   14.8   14.0   2.22 
-------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ------ 
 Minimum   2.6   0.0   1.0  95.5   0.0  1.0  666.8  315.4   3.12 
 Maximum   3.3   0.0   1.3  96.3   0.0  2.0  740.4  371.1  11.77 
-------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ------ 
Summary:
System:   7.18 Watts on average with standard deviation 2.22  
Note: Power calculated from battery capacity drain, may not be accurate.

C-State    Resident      Count Latency 
C10         93.530%     116634     890
C9           0.090%        869     480
C8           1.696%      44702     200
C7s          0.002%        196     124
C6           0.156%      11444      85
C3           0.013%       3664      70
C1E          0.133%      20598      10
C1           0.119%       8898       2
POLL         0.001%       1434       0
C0           4.261%
edit: typos

Yao2000
Freshman Member
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:15 am
Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Re: some more X210 related stuff (C states, BIOS, EC)

#9 Post by Yao2000 » Sun Apr 18, 2021 1:40 am

thank you! i managed to source a 3rd batch X210 i5-8250u. Just getting it to work correctly with the optimal bios settings and flashing the latest bios.

by the way, i found a way to tell if it is batch 1 or 2 and 3.

1st batch can only natively eDP cable attach 1920x1200 panel. 2nd and 3rd batch, you can eDp cable attach the 12.6 inch or 13.0 inch panels.

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