Arch uses more power than Ubuntu on laptop

coldice · 2015-09-26 20:25:40

Hi,

out of curiosity I tried Ubuntu 15.04 Live on my laptop today, after some playing around with it noticed that the battery life was better than with Archlinux. So I investigated it with powertop and noticed that with Ubuntu my laptop only uses 6W, while with Arch it needs 11W. Sadly I can't find the reason for that, I already installed tlp but that didn't help much. Has anybody an idea what I could do to reach 6W with Archlinux?

coldice

jasonwryan · 2015-09-26 20:41:10

This is unaswerable in its current form: you'll need to provide a lot more detail about your Arch environment.

Please see How To Ask Questions The Smart Way.

Moving to NC...

Awebb · 2015-09-26 21:07:30

You already use powertop. Can't you use all the telemetry it provides and compare the two systems?

coldice · 2015-10-01 12:18:41

Sorry for the vague description of the problem, I just hoped there would be simple solution everyone knows about.

But I investigated it further with powertop and found a few differences, but I have to say that the Ubuntu system was a live system with Unity, while my Arch system uses gnome3. The CPU is a Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4200U CPU @ 1.60GHz. I generated 2 reports with max. screen brightness (is there some service where I can upload them?)
The CPU Idle Status reports says

Package 0

C2 (pc2) 99.1%
C3 (pc3) 0.0%
C6 (pc6) 0.0%
C7 (pc7) 0.0%
C8 (pc8) 0.0%
C9 (pc9) 0.0%
C10 (pc10) 0.0%
for Ubunutu and

Package 0

C2 (pc2) 19.1%
C3 (pc3) 47.5%
C6 (pc6) 0.0%
C7 (pc7) 0.0%
C8 (pc8) 0.0%
C9 (pc9) 0.0%
C10 (pc10) 0.0%
for Arch

I also noticed that under Ubuntu the fan doesn't run when the the temperature is around 50°C while with Arch it does run. But I don't think that should make a difference if I don't use the GPU. I also noticed that Arch uses Linux version 4.2.1-1-ARCH while Ubuntu uses Linux version 3.19.0-15-generic.

Superposition · 2015-10-01 12:26:10

It's not totally clear if you set up power saving tools on your laptop or not. However, it's worth noting that these are not set up by default on arch.

coldice · 2015-10-01 15:21:21

I think so, I installed TLP and set the Kernel parameter vm.laptop_mode = 5. But I suspect that the increased energy consumption is due to the running fans. But I can't use fancontrol because lm_sensors doesn't detect any fans, but there must be some way, because with Ubuntu they don't run all the time.

phw · 2015-10-02 06:52:50

Have you looked at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Po … wer_saving ?

graysky · 2015-10-02 08:41:36

Also, does Ubuntu use the same version of the tool that is informing you on usage as Arch supplies? Well, that's almost a sentence, but you get the idea.

brebs · 2015-10-02 09:10:54

coldice wrote:

with Ubuntu my laptop only uses 6W, while with Arch it needs 11W

What video card(s) are involved? Perhaps Arch is using the power-hungry-and-hot Nvidia card, whereas Ubuntu is turning off the Nvidia card and just using Intel.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-09-26 20:25:40

Arch uses more power than Ubuntu on laptop

#2 2015-09-26 20:41:10

Re: Arch uses more power than Ubuntu on laptop

#3 2015-09-26 21:07:30

Re: Arch uses more power than Ubuntu on laptop

#4 2015-10-01 12:18:41

Re: Arch uses more power than Ubuntu on laptop

#5 2015-10-01 12:26:10

Re: Arch uses more power than Ubuntu on laptop

#6 2015-10-01 15:21:21

Re: Arch uses more power than Ubuntu on laptop

#7 2015-10-02 06:52:50

Re: Arch uses more power than Ubuntu on laptop

#8 2015-10-02 08:41:36

Re: Arch uses more power than Ubuntu on laptop

#9 2015-10-02 09:10:54

Re: Arch uses more power than Ubuntu on laptop

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