Thinkpads Forum

So, I'm trying to get an idea of what is attainable regarding discharge rates on this T61p. What kind of numbers are other T60/T61 users getting for their "present rate" with the AC adaptor and all other accessories unplugged?

Right now, I'm seeint about 28 Watts:
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state
> present: yes
> capacity state: ok
> charging state: discharging
> present rate: 28548 mW
> remaining capacity: 18930 mWh
> present voltage: 11010 mV

Secondly, ThinkWiki has instructions on how to use: cpudynd, cpufreqd, cpufrequtils, powernowd, powersaved, speedfreqd, and laptop-mode-tools. Over the years, some power-management solution will be developed, and then another will come along which is meant to replace it (like how wpa_supplicant replaced waproamd, and then network-manager replaced some of what wpa_supplicant did). I figure that some of those power-management daemons have been mostly replaced by better solutions, but I haven't come across any definitive lineage or ancestry (like "cpufreqd came first, but powersaved has replaced it by doing everything it did and more"). I'd like to avoid having multiple daemons fighting over the CPU frequency and other power-management tasks.

So, what *is* the magic cocktail of daemons to use for the T61p?

- Joe

None, for me anyways. There's basic speed-switching support built into the kernel already, you only need daemons to do fancy stuff. I have enabled setuid on cpufreq-selector, so now I can switch between those basic speed profiles from the Gnome cpufreq applet. Builtin profiles include ondemand, performance, and userspace (manually choose a speed).

Also, use Powertop. The idea is to maximize C3 state (hopefully to 90+%), by removing/reconfiguring programs that are generating interrupts.

Laptop-mode comes in handy if you configure it right. You could save 2-3w when the hard drive is turned off.


The only T61-specific change would be related to the nVidia graphics. I'm sure getting it's power saving to work properly will make a huge difference. You will need the official nVidia drivers to get Powermizer, and I'm not sure whether it supports 570m. Hopefully you can find a version of it packaged for your distribution to make installing it easier.

Agree with aaa but ondemand has been good to me, like others. Turning off dynticks and lesswatts.org/PowerTop's flags will get you a good way there. I am under 10w/h with 2.6.24-SMP on an x61s (around 8 hours on a new extended battery) with wifi and decent disk usage, which is better than most get with XP. Details down this thread if interested: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 9&start=30 My current interest is staying on ramdisk with limited writes (and spin up) of disk.

Much of kernel development is focussed on increasing battery life, and so you should find 2.6.25 appealing in many ways. While your desktop replacement will certainly use more watts than others' systems, there are many other threads on this forum on limiting consumption, including some decent numbers from owners of T6. variants. I believe pibach or someone claimed 12 watts or something with the badass Nvidia, a manufacturer who's power saving settings have a good reputation on Linux.

As aaa alluded to, you just have to prioritize battery life and consider what you do and don't need. Linux will let you do almost anything you want if you get closer to the OS instead of some application or CPU daemon or whatever. (And then you can write your own application or CPU daemon or whatever and be all things to folks like you )

Only sentences of *nix brotherhood after reading posts from some frustrated folks on this forum <3