Arch Linux

Allexj

Member

Registered: 2015-07-11

Posts: 73

In my laptop Linux has a bad battery duration compared to Windows

Windows lasts 2 hours more, and since I use a lot my laptop unplugged, I really need to optimize battery more than possible.

I have a Huawei Matebook D 14 2020, AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with integrated Vega GPU. I run the latest linux kernel.

I have tlp installed and running, among with auto-cpufreq, but they don't seem to help much.
I tried using cpupower-gui to manually set powersave and also set max CPU freq to MINIMUM. No differences.

I use powertop in order to monitor battery usage, and this is the output in idle (there's this strange "Display backlight" that consume so much battery..... I don't know if this is a Powertop bug):
https://imgur.com/a/iWwNr1L

I tried using kernel parameters: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="vga=current ivrs_ioapic[4]=00:14.0 ivrs_ioapic[5]=00:00.2 iommu=pt idle=nomwait acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_enforce_resources=lax scsi_mod.use_blk_mq=1 acpi_osi=! acpi_osi='Windows 2015'"
but powertop gives me the same output.

Last edited by Allexj (2021-06-11 22:46:54)

Lone_Wolf

Member

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,911

Re: In my laptop Linux has a bad battery duration compared to Windows

screen brightness is known to be a significant factor in laptop power usage.

Features intentionally excluded

    Fan control. See Fan speed control

    Backlight brightness. See Backlight

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Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

Allexj

Member

Registered: 2015-07-11

Posts: 73

Re: In my laptop Linux has a bad battery duration compared to Windows

screen brightness is known to be a significant factor in laptop power usage.

Features intentionally excluded

    Fan control. See Fan speed control

    Backlight brightness. See Backlight

The weird thing is that if I set the brightness to MINIMUM, Powertop gives always 7W as always, like if decreasing brightness to minimum does not make any difference.... Why?

I also tried some kernel parameters:
acpi_backlight=video consumes 14W according to Powertop
acpi_backlight=vendor, acpi_backlight=native and acpi_backlight=none all consume 7W according to Powertop as usual.

I don't know what to do.

Allexj

Member

Registered: 2015-07-11

Posts: 73

Re: In my laptop Linux has a bad battery duration compared to Windows

UPDATE:

I tested a lot of distros via live usb with Powertop, here are the results:

    ArchLinux: 7.5W

    Elementary: 7W

    EndeavourOS xfce: 7.20W

    Fedora GNOME: 7.40W

    Manjaro KDE: 7.30W

    PopOS: 7.40W

    Ubuntu : 6.50W

    Xubuntu: 6.85W

    Lubuntu: 6.40W

    LinuxMint Cinnamon: 4.43W

    LinuxMint XFCE: 5.21W

    Windows: 6.7W

Why? What's special about LinuxMint? How is it possible?

In my ArchLinux I tried TLP, auto-cpufreq, LMT but I still have high power consumption and I have a low battery duration...... so I am wondering how is it possible that LinuxMint live usb has a so low power consumption, so I could have the same results in my ArchLinux

Last edited by Allexj (2021-06-15 20:16:02)

Allexj

Member

Registered: 2015-07-11

Posts: 73

Re: In my laptop Linux has a bad battery duration compared to Windows

These are not simply and silly powertop results... I've installed LinuxMint and tried it and it has indeed a FAR better battery duration compared to ArchLinux. I really want to know the "secret key" to have this battery duration also in ArchLinux.

Lone_Wolf

Member

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,911

Re: In my laptop Linux has a bad battery duration compared to Windows

That could be  a lot of work, but if you're willing to do that start by making the archlinux and linuxmint installations as similar as possible .

So same filesystem format , encryption, boot loader type & settings, DM/WM/DE , services started , applications etc.

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

Alad

Wiki Admin/IRC Op

From: Bagelstan

Registered: 2014-05-04

Posts: 2,412

Website

Re: In my laptop Linux has a bad battery duration compared to Windows

Try powertop --auto-tune and see what wattage that gives you.

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

Allexj

Member

Registered: 2015-07-11

Posts: 73

Re: In my laptop Linux has a bad battery duration compared to Windows

Try powertop --auto-tune and see what wattage that gives you.

If I do that, I have 6W. I also noticed that if I suspend my laptop and then I wake it up, the wattage increases again so I have to manually do powertop --auto-tune again