Any Power Managment advantages with new BIOS 1.11 ?

Message

brosen · #1 Post by **brosen** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 3:44 pm

Thanks

surg · #2 Post by **surg** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:59 am

1.11 gives me roughly the same wattage idling as 1.04. Had no time testing for a longer period.
This is the bios to go probably.

rkuo · #3 Post by **rkuo** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:11 am

I'm seeing really good wattages after a cold boot...but if I resume from standby or hibernation, I get high idle wattages similar to previous power hungry BIOS's. Anyone with similar experiences?

Saml01 · #4 Post by **Saml01** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:51 am

rkuo wrote:I'm seeing really good wattages after a cold boot...but if I resume from standby or hibernation, I get high idle wattages similar to previous power hungry BIOS's. Anyone with similar experiences?

First question: how are you guys determining the wattage consumption of the processor.

As for your issue Rkuo, that doesnt seem to make sense. Do you have all your power management utils installed. The consumption should drop to previous states.

Otherwise this update is pretty interesting, I made a thread a couple of weeks back saying I want to edit the 1.10 bios and remove the code that made it power hungary after 1.04. I think there is a mole amongst us.

surg · #5 Post by **surg** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:10 pm

[quote="Saml01First question: how are you guys determining the wattage consumption of the processor.
quote]

Double click the green battery symbol and then have a look under battery information.
This of course works only if unplugged.

rkuo · #6 Post by **rkuo** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 1:56 pm

Saml01 wrote: First question: how are you guys determining the wattage consumption of the processor.

As for your issue Rkuo, that doesnt seem to make sense. Do you have all your power management utils installed. The consumption should drop to previous states.

Otherwise this update is pretty interesting, I made a thread a couple of weeks back saying I want to edit the 1.10 bios and remove the code that made it power hungary after 1.04. I think there is a mole amongst us.

What Surg said...that's how I'm determining the power consumption. I know it doesn't make sense, but that's what I'm seeing. If anyone else can verify my experience here, that would be great.

I posted over on lenovoblogs.com about the initial battery life problem...so either they had an incredibly quick turnaround on the issue, or maybe they had the fix in the works already. Anyway, if someone else can verify what I'm seeing, that would be awesome. I can get down to around 10-11W idling after a cold boot, but suspend and resume and i'm hovering around 14-15W.

brosen · #7 Post by **brosen** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 4:24 pm

rkuo wrote:
Saml01 wrote: First question: how are you guys determining the wattage consumption of the processor.

As for your issue Rkuo, that doesnt seem to make sense. Do you have all your power management utils installed. The consumption should drop to previous states.

Otherwise this update is pretty interesting, I made a thread a couple of weeks back saying I want to edit the 1.10 bios and remove the code that made it power hungary after 1.04. I think there is a mole amongst us.
What Surg said...that's how I'm determining the power consumption. I know it doesn't make sense, but that's what I'm seeing. If anyone else can verify my experience here, that would be great.

I posted over on lenovoblogs.com about the initial battery life problem...so either they had an incredibly quick turnaround on the issue, or maybe they had the fix in the works already. Anyway, if someone else can verify what I'm seeing, that would be awesome. I can get down to around 10-11W idling after a cold boot, but suspend and resume and i'm hovering around 14-15W.

I having the same effect, after cold boot, 7-9 Watt, after launching Outlook and Excel, and closing them, 11-12 Watt

kim.weller · #8 Post by **kim.weller** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:31 pm

I am running BIOS 1.11 and I have used Excel and then closed it and I am at 9.33 watts right now. I think that everyone needs to state exactly what brightness they are running and what wireless devices they have running. I am just using the Verizon WWAN wireledd right now with Bluetooth and Atheros wireless card turned off.

Kim

madana · #9 Post by **madana** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:19 pm

You may want to try this utility:

http://users.rcn.com/tmtalpey/BattStat

for a real-time graphic monitoring of how your wattage depends on loading and unloading various apps and changing your hardware profile.

It would be interesting to see your results for BIOS 1.11.

smvp6459 · #10 Post by **smvp6459** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 11:53 pm

I've noticed the same increased power consumption after coming out of standby or hibernation. I first noticed increased voltage in Notebook Hardware Control that's visible even when you're on AC. I've found if you select a power configuration that has maximum CPU utilization and then go back to your regular power scheme the increased voltage draw goes from 1.1375v down to the baseline .9500v

Now why the machine does this is a whole other question.

surg · #11 Post by **surg** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:38 am

Did anyone check if this behaviour happened with 1.04 too?

smvp6459 · #12 Post by **smvp6459** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:45 am

I've continued to check with each BIOS revision (I even reverted to 1.04, hoping it would correct the issue). The behavior has occurred in all the BIOSs since, and including, 1.04. I haven't checked pre-1.04

Saml01 · #13 Post by **Saml01** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:33 pm

Idling at 10w with brightness at 1 bar.

Battery life has definetley improved.

gunston · #14 Post by **gunston** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 9:42 pm

i think it is time to flash it and give a try!

kim.weller · #15 Post by **kim.weller** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 2:30 am

I can't get that battery utility to show both batteries at the same time? It will show my media bay battery if I have the Ultrabase hooked up but not the primary battery. If I run the laptop w/o the base attached it shows my primary battery. Any one else experience this?

Kim

gunston · #16 Post by **gunston** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 6:40 am

upgraded to 1.11,
no significant difference within 1.04.
yet, still need to monitor it for a long run.

Saml01 · #17 Post by **Saml01** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:28 pm

Gas guage is def more accurate and the computer is consuming less.

racyb · #18 Post by **racyb** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 10:18 pm

upgraded to 1.11
3 bars of brightness
wifi on, all other wireless devices off
idling at 8.18-8.43 watts

vikingboy · #19 Post by **vikingboy** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 5:00 am

where is 1.11 located? My "Software Installer" doesnt pick up the BIOS upgrade from 1.07

thx
ian

#20 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 5:10 am

vikingboy wrote:where is 1.11 located? My "Software Installer" doesnt pick up the BIOS upgrade from 1.07

You can get all the latest drivers and software for your X60 from the following page:

Software and Device Drivers - ThinkPad X60, X60s

gunston · #21 Post by **gunston** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 8:31 am

less heat is generated on the right palmrest.

cool~

lev · #22 Post by **lev** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 10:01 am

With BIOS 1.11 I find that operating on battery there is a very slight high-pitched whine from the machine. Very quiet (much quieter than the fan or hard drive) but still audible in a quiet room. Most laptops do this, I think. Presumably it's power supply noise from repeatedly reducing the voltage for short periods of time while the processor is idle, becuase the pitch/volume of the noise is correlated with how busy the machine is. It's slightly annoying, but if it improves the battery life, it's probably worth it.

Again, I only hear this whine when operating on battery, and I didn't hear it with the last 3 BIOS versions.

Lev

jimmyz · #23 Post by **jimmyz** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 10:54 am

lev wrote:With BIOS 1.11 I find that operating on battery there is a very slight high-pitched whine from the machine. Very quiet (much quieter than the fan or hard drive) but still audible in a quiet room. Most laptops do this, I think. Presumably it's power supply noise from repeatedly reducing the voltage for short periods of time while the processor is idle, becuase the pitch/volume of the noise is correlated with how busy the machine is. It's slightly annoying, but if it improves the battery life, it's probably worth it.

Again, I only hear this whine when operating on battery, and I didn't hear it with the last 3 BIOS versions.

Lev

This was the same behavior with 1.04. SO it seems like 1.04 and 1.11 are very similiar as far as battery life and that noise!

vikingboy · #24 Post by **vikingboy** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 5:31 pm

installed new Bios - 1.11 and upgraded wireless card drivers for 3945 car to the latest versions as well as configured it to use less wireless power in the system setup tab, APS temp down from 47degC to 43degC.

battrery power drain still at -13w though (3 bars brightness, wireless, no bluetooth)

seems like a worthwhile upgrade for the APS temps alone

thanks all
Ian

lev · #25 Post by **lev** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 1:19 pm

vikingboy wrote:installed new Bios - 1.11 and upgraded wireless card drivers for 3945 car to the latest versions as well as configured it to use less wireless power in the system setup tab, APS temp down from 47degC to 43degC.

Which "system setup tab" do you mean? There are a couple of different places I know of where you can alter the wireless card power (one is: access connections, edit profile, wireless settings tab, advanced configuration. another is: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection Properties, advanced tab, property: power management), but maybe you're found a different setting for me to experiment with?

Lev

SkiBunny · #26 Post by **SkiBunny** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 1:43 pm

lev wrote:There are a couple of different places I know of where you can alter the wireless card power (one is: access connections, edit profile, wireless settings tab, advanced configuration. another is: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection Properties, advanced tab, property: power management), but maybe you're found a different setting for me to experiment with?

Lev

Does such a thing exist for the Atheros card? (i cannot find)

Also, won't reducing the wireless card power reduce your reception strength too?

lev · #27 Post by **lev** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 4:23 pm

SkiBunny wrote:
lev wrote:There are a couple of different places I know of where you can alter the wireless card power (one is: access connections, edit profile, wireless settings tab, advanced configuration. another is: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection Properties, advanced tab, property: power management), but maybe you're found a different setting for me to experiment with?

Lev
Does such a thing exist for the Atheros card? (i cannot find)

Also, won't reducing the wireless card power reduce your reception strength too?

I don't know whether such a setting exists for the Atheros, but the same settings were also available on my old-school Orinocco Silver 802.11b PCMCIA card I had in my 5-year old Dell laptop, and they are standard settings, defined in the 802.11 specs.

I think I can answer your second question....

On the Intel card there are two ways that you can adjust the power. The first way is to reduce the transmission power. This will obviously(?) not impact your reception strength (you would have to adjust the transmission power at the access point to do that), but if you set it too low, your transmissions might not reach the access point. You only need to set the transmission power just high enough that the signal gets through, anything more is a waste. (An analogy would be if you were talking/shouting to your friend accross a distance, you only need to talk/shout loud enough that she can hear you -- shouting as loud as you can is a waste of your energy).

The second way you can adjust the power is a power-saving feature of the 802.11 wireless standards. Basically, the mobile station can tell the access point something like "I'm going to sleep for a little while, hold my messages", wake up short time later and collect any data that was held by the access point. It saves a lot of power (if you're not using the full capacity of the link at all times), and it doesn't affect the speed of the connection, or how reliable the connection is, or anything bad like that. The only negative effect it has, is on the latency for receiving packets -- because your wireless card goes to sleep for a little while, if a message comes in while it is asleep, there will be a short delay before it wakes up and collects it. On the intel card (and also on my old orinocco card I used with my dell, so I think this is somewhat standard) there are 3 settings. 1) always use the power-saving mode; 2) never use the power-saving mode; 3) use power-saving mode on battery power, don't use it on AC power. The default is 3. This is why people who complain that their palmrest is hot with wireless on, say that it is worse if they have the power adapter plugged in.

On the intel card you can adjust all these settings by opening control panel, going to "network connections", right-clicking on "wireless connection" and choosing "properties" from the menu, then pressing the "Configure..." button near the top right, then going to the "Advanced" tab on the dialog that comes up. So far everything will also apply to the Atheros card or any other wireless card, but the specific settings on the "Advanced" tab will be different. For the intel card they are: "Power Management" to control the use of the sleep mode, and "Transmit Power" to control the transmitted radio power. Be warned that if you make use of "ThinkVantage Access Connections" then these settings will be overridden, and instead you should make the changes using Access Connections.

Hope that helps.

SkiBunny · #28 Post by **SkiBunny** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 4:34 pm

Thanks lev, great post

SkiBunny · #29 Post by **SkiBunny** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 8:01 pm

i upgraded to 1.11, and tho the change log says it improves power managment, i'm unsure i notice a difference yet... maybe

Thing is, i'm afraid to run much on battery because mine is a sony (sony batteries caused fire in dell and apple )

rkuo · #30 Post by **rkuo** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 7:22 pm

I've figured out more on the issue of power consumption being higher after coming out of suspend or hibernate. I'm still trying to narrow down what is going on, but I'm a lot closer.

There actually seem to be two separate issues.

1. The Bluetooth adapter seems to draw an excessive amount of power after coming out of suspend or hibernate. If you turn it off via the wireless radio utility, the power consumption drops dramatically.

2. Either the wireless WAN or the Wi-Fi adapter is drawing an excessive amount of power after coming out of suspend or hibernate. Turning off the radios via the wireless radio utility does NOT alleviate the issue, for some reason. Turning off the radios and turning them back on via the hardware switch on the front seems to correctly reset whatever is causing the problem.

I may have some details wrong here but the overall idea is correct. Hope this helps other people trying to get the battery life out of the X60 that it is capable of.

Any Power Managment advantages with new BIOS 1.11 ?

Any Power Managment advantages with new BIOS 1.11 ?

Who is online