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kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

I have a MacBook Pro 5,5 and it's using around 14-16 watts an hour. That gives me around 3 hours, but mac and windows give me around 6-8 hours. Can somebody help me get my battery life higher?

Last edited by kkeller (2010-11-11 01:32:54)

Allan

Pacman

From: Brisbane, AU

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 11,393

Website

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Have you set up cpu freq scaling?

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kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Well, I've tried. But i probably didn't do it right. Because i'm a newbie at Arch Linux. Not at ubuntu. But at Arch.

Allan

Pacman

From: Brisbane, AU

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 11,393

Website

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

So what did you try?   We need some actual details to help...

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kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Well, i typed "sudo pacman -S cpufrequtils" Then i did "modprobe acpi-cpufreq" That's all i have so far.

thestinger

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Toronto, Canada

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 478

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

follow this guide for cpu frequency scaling: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cpufrequtils
useful stuff here too: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/La … Management

basically, get powersaving on as many things as possible (usb autosuspend, pci autosuspend, alsa powersave, etc.) and minimize wakeups per second (you can use powertop to check)

Last edited by thestinger (2010-11-11 02:56:06)

kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

follow this guide for cpu frequency scaling: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cpufrequtils
useful stuff here too: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/La … Management

Ive used those. But, they dont help alot.

thestinger

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Toronto, Canada

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 478

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

you need acpi-cpufreq and cpufreq_ondemand in MODULES=() and you need to select ondemand as the governor in /etc/conf.d/cpufreq and add the cpufreq daemon to DAEMONS=() in rc.conf (it's all in the article)

make sure it's working with cpufreq-info

kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Thanks, i did the acpi-cpufreq in Modules but, i didn't get the cpufreq_ondemand and in the /etc/conf.d/cpufreq file, those lines were commented out, so i uncommented them, and am about to reboot.

kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Thanks man, now i get around 12.2 watts. Which gives me around 4 hours Do you guys have any more tips how i can get a bit more life out of my 50w battery? Thanks to all!

thestinger

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Toronto, Canada

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 478

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Do you have the Nvidia proprietary driver installed? Nouveau has no power saving.

Also, change POWERSAVE=0 to POWERSAVE=1 in /etc/conf.d/alsa.

kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

The proprietary driver is installed with "sudo pacman -S nvidia" right? And, Ill change the powersave now.

litemotiv

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2008-08-01

Posts: 5,026

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Also blacklist modules for hardware that you don't use, bluetooth or cardreaders for instance. You can always modprobe them manually when you need them.

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ferda

Member

Registered: 2010-02-05

Posts: 67

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

for nvidia powersaving check out this site:
http://tutanhamon.com.ua/technovodstvo/ … IX-driver/

I use

    Option         "RegistryDwords" "PowerMizerEnable=0x1; PerfLevelSrc=0x2233; PowerMizerDefault=0x3"

in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. you get balanced mode on AC an powersaving on battery.

with

/usr/bin/nvidia-settings --assign "[gpu:0]/GPUOverclockingState=1" \
                         --assign "[gpu:0]/GPU2DClockFreqs=64,64"

you can limit your gpu to the lowest performance level and clock it down to 64 MHz in this case.

kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Also blacklist modules for hardware that you don't use, bluetooth or cardreaders for instance. You can always modprobe them manually when you need them.

What are some of the modules? Can you please list some of the least used ones? Thanks.

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,356

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Also blacklist modules for hardware that you don't use, bluetooth or cardreaders for instance. You can always modprobe them manually when you need them.

What are some of the modules? Can you please list some of the least used ones? Thanks.

lsmod and google them.

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kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Okay, but i cant find the Module for the Card Reader on the Macbook Pro 5,5

kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Btw, what's ohci_hcd and ehci_hcd?

ChoK

Member

From: France

Registered: 2008-10-01

Posts: 346

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

USB host controller driver. (Google can get you immediate answers from such questions)

What does lspci says about your card reader?

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kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

USB host controller driver. (Google can get you immediate answers from such questions)

What does lspci says about your card reader?

It's not on there, but it is on Powertop. It returns that is does like 20% of the wakeups. And, thanks for the USB host thing.

Last edited by kkeller (2010-11-12 15:11:18)

kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Okay, i found the module. It's usb_storage. But, i think that if i rmmod that, to test it, it shuts off the usb ports. Am i correct?

kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Bump.

kkeller

Member

Registered: 2010-11-09

Posts: 30

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

Bump....

thestinger

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Toronto, Canada

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 478

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

All that you can really do now is compile a custom kernel, with all the experimental/optional power saving stuff turned on, and stuff you don't need stripped out.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … 26_Package

.:B:.

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2006-11-26

Posts: 5,819

Website

Re: Macbook Pro 5,5 Battery Life

kkeller: don't bump within 24 hours please. You could use that time better to document yourself rather than keep bumping your topic. If people don't know, they won't reply.

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