thinkpad power management

[ruebenramirez]

so I've installed all kinds of power management on this Thinkpad W520 to keep the battery life up.

• Before I started installing tools, a brand new 70++ battery was clocking in around 2.5hrs runtime.
• After installing tools, this same brand new battery is doing something like 5.5hrs to 6.25hrs runtime.
• [ ] can I get better battery life than this though?
  • review the cpu scaling_governor setting on each core:

TLP processor stats show that only one core (of 8) is set to powersave. All the others are set to performance.

[~]$ sudo tlp-stat -p
[sudo] password for rramirez: 
--- TLP 0.8 --------------------------------------------

+++ Processor
CPU Model      = Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_driver    = intel_pstate
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor  = powersave
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq  =   800000 [kHz]
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq  =  3300000 [kHz]

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_driver    = intel_pstate
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor  = performance
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq  =   800000 [kHz]
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq  =  3300000 [kHz]

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/cpufreq/scaling_driver    = intel_pstate
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/cpufreq/scaling_governor  = performance
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq  =   800000 [kHz]
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq  =  3300000 [kHz]

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/cpufreq/scaling_driver    = intel_pstate
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/cpufreq/scaling_governor  = performance
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq  =   800000 [kHz]
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq  =  3300000 [kHz]

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu4/cpufreq/scaling_driver    = intel_pstate
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu4/cpufreq/scaling_governor  = performance
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu4/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq  =   800000 [kHz]
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu4/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq  =  3300000 [kHz]

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu5/cpufreq/scaling_driver    = intel_pstate
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu5/cpufreq/scaling_governor  = performance
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu5/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq  =   800000 [kHz]
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu5/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq  =  3300000 [kHz]

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu6/cpufreq/scaling_driver    = intel_pstate
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu6/cpufreq/scaling_governor  = performance
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu6/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq  =   800000 [kHz]
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu6/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq  =  3300000 [kHz]

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu7/cpufreq/scaling_driver    = intel_pstate
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu7/cpufreq/scaling_governor  = performance
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu7/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq  =   800000 [kHz]
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu7/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq  =  3300000 [kHz]

/sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/min_perf_pct      = 100
/sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/max_perf_pct      = 100
/sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo          = 0

x86_energy_perf_policy: program for your kernel not installed.

/proc/sys/kernel/nmi_watchdog                          = 0

+++ Undervolting
PHC kernel not available.

resources:

• https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cpu-freq/governors.txt
• https://www.pantz.org/software/cpufreq/usingcpufreqonlinux.html
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CPU_frequency_scaling

[ruebenramirez]

I think I need to look into what all is connecting to the internet when wifi is available.

when I was diconnected from wifi, battery was reported at somewhere just shy of 9 hours.

when I connected, battery is reported at 5 hours and 20 minutes.

---

it might also just be chrome is typically running when I'm connected to the web, and not otherwise...

[ruebenramirez]

• [ ] benchmark power consumption the various processes that I'm running
• ~/.xsetroot.sh - this runs ever 5 seconds or less - so we need to work on a better way to get these stats if it's consuming a crapload of power
  • maybe change to having each check run less often and just setting environment variables to be displayed via ~/.xsetroot.sh

[ruebenramirez]

made it easier to install the tlp tools via this Makefile rule:

thinkpad-power-management:
    # thinkpad power management
    sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw tp-smapi-dkms acpi-call-dkms
    sudo tlp start

But I think laptop-mode-tools is another great tool that helps with battery life.