Urza9814 Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 So I'm trying to figure out how to get the most out of my laptop battery. So far I can get just over 4 hours, but I'm looking to see just how high I can go on my cheap, low-capacity battery. The thing I'm having trouble with is managing the CPU. Currently, I use KPowerSave, which I believe uses cpufrequtils to set the "P States". But the problem is, my only choices are 'Performance', 'Dynamic' and 'Powersave'. On Vista (ugh, I know) I believe (haven't used it in a loong time, for obvious reasons) I can set exactly what frequency to set them at, and even shut down one core entirely if I want. Is there any way to do such a thing in Linux? Because the best I can get so far is both cores running at 800MHz, which is good, but there are times when all I'm running is IceWM and CoolEdit, so I could surely survive on much less. Any suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonseth17 Posted March 25, 2009 Report Share Posted March 25, 2009 So I'm trying to figure out how to get the most out of my laptop battery. So far I can get just over 4 hours, but I'm looking to see just how high I can go on my cheap, low-capacity battery. The thing I'm having trouble with is managing the CPU. Currently, I use KPowerSave, which I believe uses cpufrequtils to set the "P States". But the problem is, my only choices are 'Performance', 'Dynamic' and 'Powersave'. On Vista (ugh, I know) I believe (haven't used it in a loong time, for obvious reasons) I can set exactly what frequency to set them at, and even shut down one core entirely if I want. Is there any way to do such a thing in Linux? Because the best I can get so far is both cores running at 800MHz, which is good, but there are times when all I'm running is IceWM and CoolEdit, so I could surely survive on much less. Any suggestions? well I did some reaserch (I know it doesn't seem that way ;) but I usually do that when urpmi code doesn't work cuz I don't know the program or daemon name) if you're using mandriva free 2009.0 you will find in rpmdrake a daemon and a program that could work for you (seriously I haven't try it cuz I don't need less than 800 MHz)....so hopefully it will work for you :) see my screenshot and if you haven't add easy-urpmi reposit..do it first :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urza9814 Posted March 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2009 (edited) Huh. thanks. I'm on 2008.1 actually, but it's in my urpmi database as well. Unfortunately, urpmi appears to have _locked up_ trying to install it (I have _never_ seen that happen before...maybe it's just taking forever to install, though I doubt that), but we'll see. I'll get it installed eventually. lol edit: Ah, there we go. It doesn't let me specify a CPU speed manually, but it does let me disable one. I've got my battery life up to 4:30 now :) lol Edited March 25, 2009 by Urza9814 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniewicz Posted March 25, 2009 Report Share Posted March 25, 2009 Have a look at powertop if you are interested in increasing your battery life further: http://www.lesswatts.org/projects/powertop/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urza9814 Posted March 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 Ah! I like that powertop program. The only problem I have is it's suggesting things like 'Enable SATA ALPM link power management' and 'changing VM dirty writeback from 4.99 to 15'. I have no idea what those mean, and I'm not sure I want to be changing things I don't understand...because I don't know how they'll impact performance when I'm _not_ trying to squeeze every last minute out of my battery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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