Arch Linux

oxygen_wobble

Member

Registered: 2012-05-20

Posts: 129

[SOLVED] Power management (on ThinkPad T440s) ... i'm confused !

Hi,

so, i've just installed arch on my new device (ThinkPad T440s), and i was thinking about installing some power saving
utility ...

But, there are so many of them, and i can't really tell the differences, so i'm confused ...

I currently run powertop, and though there are always errors when running powertop --auto-tune (s.th. about bad character '{', and missing parameter files),
it seems to have some effect ....

But, there's also tlp, laptop mode tools, pm-utils, powerdown ... so, what are the differences, and pros and cons of each ?

Regards,
N

Last edited by oxygen_wobble (2015-03-14 02:39:21)

Alad

Wiki Admin/IRC Op

From: Bagelstan

Registered: 2014-05-04

Posts: 2,420

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Power management (on ThinkPad T440s) ... i'm confused !

It's easy to do some research of your own:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Laptop
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Power_management

P.S: powertop --auto-tune is just asking for trouble. If you do use powertop, you check and enable settings one by one.

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Mods are just community members who have the occasionally necessary option to move threads around and edit posts. -- Trilby

oxygen_wobble

Member

Registered: 2012-05-20

Posts: 129

Re: [SOLVED] Power management (on ThinkPad T440s) ... i'm confused !

Well, that's exactly the point, as i've read all of that, which left me with severe option paralysis ...

There seem to be many, many possiblities seem to be equally ok, and i've got no idea which one would apply or be best for my setup.

Btw, powertop --auto-tune doesn't cause any harm so far, what kind of trouble are you talking about ?

After some calibration, it seems to work, and reduce power consuption a little ... and again, all these settings doesn't mean anything to me,
so i'd have no idea which one to change, and to what, or even how to gauge meaningful values ...

Alad

Wiki Admin/IRC Op

From: Bagelstan

Registered: 2014-05-04

Posts: 2,420

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Power management (on ThinkPad T440s) ... i'm confused !

and again, all these settings doesn't mean anything to me,

That's exactly the problem. You've enabled a bunch of settings, have no idea what they're doing, and when something goes wrong (which it likely will) it only adds to the mystery.

If you want some more background:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki

Anyway, with a modern kernel I doubt Powertop et. al. are worth the added complexity. Setting the display brightness on the other hand is straightforward and should have a meaningful impact.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backlight
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Di … _Signaling

Last edited by Alad (2015-03-11 13:43:57)

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Mods are just community members who have the occasionally necessary option to move threads around and edit posts. -- Trilby

oxygen_wobble

Member

Registered: 2012-05-20

Posts: 129

Re: [SOLVED] Power management (on ThinkPad T440s) ... i'm confused !

Well, to be honest, this is one of the parts that i'd simply like to work, without spending any thought on it, as i find it neither interesting nor do i have time to read up on really specific power management settings.

So, if there's anything i can simply switch on, and it reduces power consumption, perfect. If not, well, then i'll probably have to plug in the AC a little more frequently, and that's it ...

Last edited by oxygen_wobble (2015-03-11 13:50:04)

Alad

Wiki Admin/IRC Op

From: Bagelstan

Registered: 2014-05-04

Posts: 2,420

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Power management (on ThinkPad T440s) ... i'm confused !

Desktop environment have utilities of their own, if you run one. You also at least want to read this:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_re … g_Userland
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/tp_smapi#Features

PS: If you want to play my guinea pig, I use this script for managing the display.

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Mods are just community members who have the occasionally necessary option to move threads around and edit posts. -- Trilby

oxygen_wobble

Member

Registered: 2012-05-20

Posts: 129

Re: [SOLVED] Power management (on ThinkPad T440s) ... i'm confused !

Hmm seems like most of this i have already implemented by intuition (it's not like i haven't done any research at all )

TP_Smapi doesn't really apply to newer ThinkPads, amirite ? But tpacpi-bat does the trick ...

Alad

Wiki Admin/IRC Op

From: Bagelstan

Registered: 2014-05-04

Posts: 2,420

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Power management (on ThinkPad T440s) ... i'm confused !

I'm unfamiliar with tpacpi-pat, but sounds like it, yes. Unless you have further questions, feel free to mark this topic as [Solved].

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Mods are just community members who have the occasionally necessary option to move threads around and edit posts. -- Trilby

jlp2

Member

Registered: 2013-11-06

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Power management (on ThinkPad T440s) ... i'm confused !

Cou could also take a look at TLP

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP