How is the battery life in linux

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baraider · #1 Post by **baraider** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 4:06 pm

I have a compaq laptop that i install gentoo dualboot with xp.

on xp, 100% charged battery show a 4 hours life.

On Gentoo, 100% charged battery show only 2h30...and the battery drains very quick

I don't know how a T42 or 43 with a 6 cell will last on linux (ubuntu).

Anyone has this can report the life and how it compares to xp?

wswartzendruber · #2 Post by **wswartzendruber** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 2:57 pm

baraider wrote:I have a compaq laptop that i install gentoo dualboot with xp.

on xp, 100% charged battery show a 4 hours life.

On Gentoo, 100% charged battery show only 2h30...and the battery drains very quick

I don't know how a T42 or 43 with a 6 cell will last on linux (ubuntu).

Anyone has this can report the life and how it compares to xp?

If you can recompile your kernel, add CPU Frequency Scaling to the build.

stgreek · #3 Post by **stgreek** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 3:38 pm

baraider wrote:I have a compaq laptop that i install gentoo dualboot with xp.

on xp, 100% charged battery show a 4 hours life.

On Gentoo, 100% charged battery show only 2h30...and the battery drains very quick

I don't know how a T42 or 43 with a 6 cell will last on linux (ubuntu).

Anyone has this can report the life and how it compares to xp?

Recompile your kernel and add cpufreq support and the speedstep_centrino module. Most likely you are running your processor at full speed on battery, which has adverse effects on battery life. There are also more tricks you can do, especially if you use acpi. Go to this page :
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/power-management-guide.xml
for more information. Just as a guide, with acpi you should get around 3.45 hours, while with apm it is more like 3.15-3.20 hours. If you need more info, please ask.

Stavros

baraider · #4 Post by **baraider** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 4:29 pm

i have acpi...most of the time the cpu meter show it runs at 600mhz...only when i compile something it run at 1.4Ghz...

still at 100% charge, battery metter show much less time remaining in linux than in xp..

is this normal?

stgreek · #5 Post by **stgreek** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 5:27 am

baraider wrote:i have acpi...most of the time the cpu meter show it runs at 600mhz...only when i compile something it run at 1.4Ghz...

still at 100% charge, battery metter show much less time remaining in linux than in xp..

is this normal?

That also depends on your brightness setting. since the monitor eats up the most battery. On windows, the IBM PM changes profiles automatically, so maybe you have the LCD at a lower brightness than on Linux. Try them both on minimum brightness and please report the results.

Volker · #6 Post by **Volker** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 11:19 am

Here is a comparison that I made a while ago. Enable the ATI powerplay, and make sure that your CPU enters ACPI C3.

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~vbraun/comput ... power.html

How is the battery life in linux

How is the battery life in linux

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