[SOLVED] Low battery life(Network devices draining all my battery)

LazyLucretia · 2016-01-31 17:47:10

Solution: It looks like I did not install bbswitch while installing bumblebee. I installed bbswitch and problem has been solved. I feel like an idiot...

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Hello everyone, first time poster here! I've been using Arch Linux for a few months and I have to say that I'm mostly happy with it. However, there is one thing that bothers me: battery life. Here is some information about my situation: My laptop is 3 years old so it has an old battery but I'm dual booting with Windows 10 and when I'm using Windows, battery lasts for ~2,5 hours on light usage. However, when I'm using Arch, it only lasts for an hour(if I'm lucky...). I made a lot of research and tried different solutions. Right now, I'm using Bumblebee to switch of my discrete GPU, Laptop Mode Tools for power management and PowerTop for monitoring my usage. I enabled most powersave features in LMT but it did not helped much. I also tried TLP before and I didn't have much luck with it either. I use Xfce with no compositor and no fancy effects and my display brightness is 10%.

The wierd part is, even though I enabled power saving for both ethernet and wireless network devices, PowerTop still lists them as top two battery drainers and they are draining nearly all of my battery. Here are some more info:
Output of

# powertop --calibrate

when networks are enabled(I ommited the calibration part, I can add it if it contains necessary information):

The battery reports a discharge rate of 18.4 W
The estimated remaining time is 0 hours, 55 minutes

Summary: 125.2 wakeups/second,  0.8 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 2.5% CPU use

Power est.              Usage       Events/s    Category       Description
  8.25 W      0.7 pkts/s                Device         Network interface: wlp3s0 (ath9k)
  7.65 W      0.0 pkts/s                Device         Network interface: enp4s0f2 (r8169)
  3.56 W      5.0%                      Device         Display backlight
  2.24 W    100.0%                      Device         USB device: USB Camera (Azurewave)
  319 mW    100.0%                      Device         Radio device: asus-nb-wmi
 24.1 mW      7.4 ms/s       4.8        Process        /usr/lib/xorg-server/Xorg :0 -seat seat0 -auth /run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch
 9.10 mW      2.1 ms/s       8.8        Process        xfce4-terminal
 5.97 mW      2.3 ms/s       4.8        Process        /usr/bin/NetworkManager --no-daemon
 5.57 mW      2.1 ms/s      0.00        Process        [kworker/u8:1]
 4.44 mW    279.0 us/s       5.8        Process        xfwm4 --display :0.0 --sm-client-id 26657d66a-35c0-4788-b3d9-3f88fb2d4808
 4.40 mW    616.6 us/s       3.1        Process        nm-applet
 3.24 mW      1.2 ms/s      0.00        Process        /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system --address=systemd: --nofork --nopidfile --systemd-activation
 2.33 mW      0.9 ms/s       2.3        Interrupt      [6] tasklet(softirq)
 1.79 mW    681.5 us/s      0.05        Process        sh
 1.51 mW    574.7 us/s      30.1        Interrupt      PS/2 Touchpad / Keyboard / Mouse
 1.51 mW    221.2 us/s       2.6        Process        xscreensaver -no-splash
 1.30 mW    495.0 us/s      0.05        Interrupt      [7] sched(softirq)
 1.23 mW    468.2 us/s       0.4        Process        /usr/bin/wpa_supplicant -u
 1.20 mW    456.1 us/s       2.0        Process        /usr/lib/xfce4/notifyd/xfce4-notifyd
 1.05 mW    400.5 us/s      0.05        Process        handler.sh
 1.02 mW    390.1 us/s      14.5        Timer          tick_sched_timer
  944 uW    359.7 us/s      0.00        Interrupt      [17] ath9k
  607 uW    231.1 us/s      0.25        Process        systemd-udevd
  515 uW    196.1 us/s      11.2        kWork          ieee80211_iface_work
  482 uW    183.4 us/s      0.00        Interrupt      [1] timer(softirq)
  438 uW    166.9 us/s      0.00        Process        [kworker/u8:2]
  435 uW    165.7 us/s       3.8        Process        xfdesktop --display :0.0 --sm-client-id 29b2a3fd9-b078-4c8c-93b1-74ddd4374cec
  433 uW    165.0 us/s       3.1        Process        xfsettingsd --display :0.0 --sm-client-id 2eaea1479-0175-4785-b24e-d17f38685880
  417 uW    159.0 us/s       4.0        Process        xfce4-session
  403 uW    153.7 us/s      0.00        Timer          intel_pstate_timer_func
  383 uW    145.8 us/s      0.00        Interrupt      [9] RCU(softirq)
  372 uW    141.6 us/s      0.10        Process        /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-udevd
  369 uW    140.4 us/s      0.15        kWork          acpi_ec_event_processor
  366 uW    139.3 us/s       8.2        Process        [rcu_preempt]
  347 uW    132.1 us/s       3.6        Process        xfce4-panel --display :0.0 --sm-client-id 2fe93dc09-3740-4465-85cc-2f1a7af2c639

when networks are disabled(again, calibration omitted):

The battery reports a discharge rate of 18.1 W
The estimated remaining time is 0 hours, 31 minutes

Summary: 14.3 wakeups/second,  0.3 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 0.2% CPU use

Power est.              Usage       Events/s    Category       Description
  9.15 W      0.0 pkts/s                Device         Network interface: wlp3s0 (ath9k)
  4.02 W     10.0%                      Device         Display backlight
  1.48 W    100.0%                      Device         USB device: USB Camera (Azurewave)
  364 mW    100.0%                      Device         Radio device: asus-nb-wmi
 1.89 mW    669.2 us/s      0.15        kWork          rfkill_poll
 1.75 mW    117.0 us/s       0.7        Process        xfce4-terminal
 1.22 mW     65.8 us/s      0.25        Process        /usr/lib/xfce4/panel/wrapper-1.0 /usr/lib/xfce4/panel/plugins/libdatetime.so 23 10485790 datetime DateTime Date an
  876 uW    301.9 us/s       0.3        Process        /usr/lib/xorg-server/Xorg :0 -seat seat0 -auth /run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch
  628 uW    102.9 us/s       4.3        Timer          tick_sched_timer
  511 uW    181.7 us/s      0.00        Interrupt      [7] sched(softirq)
  354 uW    118.9 us/s      0.25        Process        /usr/bin/thermald --no-daemon --dbus-enable
  249 uW     72.0 us/s       0.6        Process        xscreensaver -no-splash
  215 uW     76.4 us/s      0.00        Interrupt      [1] timer(softirq)
  175 uW     62.3 us/s      0.00        Timer          delayed_work_timer_fn
  166 uW     58.9 us/s      0.00        Timer          intel_pstate_timer_func
  135 uW     48.0 us/s      0.00        Timer          hrtimer_wakeup
  132 uW     17.9 us/s       1.0        Process        [rcu_preempt]
  108 uW     13.5 us/s       0.9        kWork          vmstat_shepherd
  106 uW     10.0 us/s       1.0        kWork          pci_pme_list_scan
  105 uW     34.6 us/s      0.10        kWork          i915_hangcheck_elapsed
  103 uW     33.8 us/s      0.10        kWork          i915_gem_idle_work_handler
  101 uW     22.0 us/s       0.5        Process        /usr/bin/gpg-agent --sh --daemon --write-env-file /home/umut/.cache/gpg-agent-info
    0 mW     23.1 us/s      0.30        Process        /usr/bin/NetworkManager --no-daemon
    0 mW     31.1 us/s      0.00        Process        [kworker/1:0]
    0 mW     21.8 us/s      0.25        Process        xfdesktop --display :0.0 --sm-client-id 29b2a3fd9-b078-4c8c-93b1-74ddd4374cec
    0 mW     21.8 us/s      0.25        Process        /usr/lib/xfce4/panel/wrapper-1.0 /usr/lib/xfce4/panel/plugins/libwhiskermenu.so 17 10485786 whiskermenu Whisker Me
    0 mW     20.3 us/s      0.10        kWork          wb_workfn
    0 mW     12.1 us/s      0.30        Process        /usr/lib/rtkit/rtkit-daemon
    0 mW     19.6 us/s      0.00        Timer          watchdog_timer_fn
    0 mW     16.0 us/s      0.10        kWork          i915_gem_retire_work_handler
    0 mW      2.6 us/s       0.5        kWork          mei_timer
    0 mW     15.3 us/s      0.00        Process        [kworker/3:0]
    0 mW     14.8 us/s      0.00        Process        [kworker/2:1]
    0 mW      2.2 us/s       0.4        Timer          sched_rt_period_timer
    0 mW     13.1 us/s      0.00        Timer          process_timeout

These are my bad tunables right now:

>> Bad           Enable Audio codec power management                                                                    
   Bad           VM writeback timeout
   Bad           Autosuspend for USB device Bluetooth USB Host Controller [Atheros Communications]
   Bad           Wake-on-lan status for device enp4s0f2

Audio power management is enabled in LMT I don't know why it is listed as "Bad". I did not touch VM writeback timeout because it is listed as "settings you don't want to touch" in "laptop-mode.conf". I have no idea what that usb bluetooth device is, I do not have a "USB" Bluetooth device and I enabled autosuspend for all devices in LMT. Wake-on-lan for my ethernet device is also disabled on LMT.

And these are my kernel parameters:

root=/dev/sda6 rw i915.enable_fbc=1 i915.enable_rc6=7 i915.lvds_downclock=1 ath9k.ps_enable=1

I can add any additional information if necessary. Please help me I'm desprate here I do not now what else I can do.

Last edited by LazyLucretia (2016-03-01 22:48:32)

Arch Linux

#1 2016-01-31 17:47:10

[SOLVED] Low battery life(Network devices draining all my battery)

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