Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

no24 · 2007-02-02 20:05:58

I've noticed my laptop's fan runs a lot louder (constantly, eventhough CPU is scaled down to 1 ghz from 2.0) than it does in XP. I think this also leads to a poorer battery life, even though the brightness is dimmed down.

Would this have to do with ACPID failing to load? On startup it has a nice big red FAIL. But when i run acpid restart it stops and starts just fine? So perhaps it is in fact loading fine.

Any ideas how to improve battery life and quiet the loud fan? I've looked around but nothing has been posted recently. Thanks!

btw im utilizing powernowd

Last edited by no24 (2007-02-02 20:47:00)

hugin · 2007-02-02 20:48:42

You may want to look into CPU scaling. This reduces the amount of power going to the cpu, making it run cooler, and the battery to last longer. also turning down the brightness on your display can help considerably. My pentiumM needs a couple of modules loaded to make this work: speedstep_centrino, cpufreq_(the governer I want to use). there are a couple of deamons to help have it scale "intellegently", a simple search should help you with that, I can't think of them off the top of my head anymore.

Personally I just use KDE's ability to help me scale my CPU, but I think it might not be the most secure way, as I had to setuid one some helper app. But I'm not too worried about it. hope that helps.

/swogs

billy · 2007-02-02 21:06:08

i use cpufreqd... it's very easy to cofigure it through /etc/cpufreqd.conf. you can even make a rule when using a certain program to raise the cpu frequency when running on battery.

oh and one question for others: does cpu running on different governors but same cpu frequency use more/less or equal power?

phrakture · 2007-02-02 21:17:28

For the record: the kernel space governors are usually far better at CPU scaling. Check out /etc/conf.d/cpufreq (NOTE: no 'd') and run /etc/rc.d/cpufreq

Secondly, no24: I have a T60 and can barely hear the fan at all, maybe ibm_acpi (the module) will help you - I think you need that for fan control, though I may be mistaken.

billy · 2007-02-02 21:42:34

but how can you then automatically switch between different cpu governors?

Last edited by billy (2007-02-02 21:59:34)

phrakture · 2007-02-02 22:30:44

billy wrote:

but how can you then automatically switch between different cpu governors?

modprobe cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_performance
cpufreq-set -g ondemand
...some time passes...
cpufreq-set -g performance

It's not all that hard to have those commands fire on acpi events either.

billy · 2007-02-02 22:36:31

phrakture wrote:

billy wrote:
but how can you then automatically switch between different cpu governors?
modprobe cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_performance
cpufreq-set -g ondemand
...some time passes...
cpufreq-set -g performance
It's not all that hard to have those commands fire on acpi events either.

doesn't cpufreqd do just that? it's a daemon that calls cpufreq with different parameters.

phrakture · 2007-02-03 01:55:27

billy wrote:

phrakture wrote:
billy wrote:
but how can you then automatically switch between different cpu governors?
modprobe cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_performance
cpufreq-set -g ondemand
...some time passes...
cpufreq-set -g performance
It's not all that hard to have those commands fire on acpi events either.
doesn't cpufreqd do just that? it's a daemon that calls cpufreq with different parameters.

Not last I checked. Last i recall, cpufreqd used the "cpufreq_userspace" kernel governor, which pushes control to userspace instead of the kernel. cpufreq_ondemand and friends are all done in kernel space.

no24 · 2007-02-03 07:23:29

thanks phrakture, that's helpful and i think ill switch over.

for some reason my fan is quiet again. im not sure why earlier it wouldnt go down and the battery was dropping more quickly than normal.

no24 · 2007-02-03 07:24:54

now if i can only figure out why openoffice lags XFCE startup on my non-root user and causes the super key to get "stuck." i dont want to have to use root all the time.

billy · 2007-02-03 10:12:24

phrakture wrote:

billy wrote:
phrakture wrote:
modprobe cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_performance
cpufreq-set -g ondemand
...some time passes...
cpufreq-set -g performance
It's not all that hard to have those commands fire on acpi events either.
doesn't cpufreqd do just that? it's a daemon that calls cpufreq with different parameters.
Not last I checked. Last i recall, cpufreqd used the "cpufreq_userspace" kernel governor, which pushes control to userspace instead of the kernel. cpufreq_ondemand and friends are all done in kernel space.

How come when i do cpufreq-info i get governor ondemand or something else, it depends on the configuration in cpufreqd.conf where you set up which governor to use at certain state of a laptop. so i never run in a userspace governor.

Last edited by billy (2007-02-03 10:13:48)

no24 · 2007-02-03 21:27:12

Phrakture:

Do you get a or have you gotten a constant high pitched (but relatively quiet) noise from your t60? I've heard it here and there.. but recently its been sorta constant and it's a bit annoying.

And also, did you install specific drivers for the trackpoint device? it's not as smooth as in XP, and i've messed around with the accel/threshold settings a bit... its close but a bit jumpier it seems.

Last edited by no24 (2007-02-03 21:28:41)

cromo · 2007-02-04 14:26:55

no24 did you hear about www.thinkwiki.org? You'll find a lot of interesting stuff over there. High pitched sound issue is quite common on Lenovo and Dell laptops, explained here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_w … tch_noises . From my experience, happens only when workin at full cpu's speed. Please read carefully as there are different solutions to this problem. Some of them (limiting processors C-states) might reduce the battery life, and most likely will. Personally I used to solve it by setting the timer interrupt frequency to something around 250Hz. This value is the default one for archlinux stock kernel, although beyond kernel comes with 1000Hz setting which makes my laptop emmit that sound unfortunately.

Last edited by cromo (2007-02-04 14:28:05)

no24 · 2007-02-04 20:21:55

oh i've seen thinkwiki but I didnt think to browse through there for this specific problem. Thanks. I'll look immediately. And you're right.. right now its running nice and quiet.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-02-02 20:05:58

Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#2 2007-02-02 20:48:42

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#3 2007-02-02 21:06:08

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#4 2007-02-02 21:17:28

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#5 2007-02-02 21:42:34

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#6 2007-02-02 22:30:44

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#7 2007-02-02 22:36:31

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#8 2007-02-03 01:55:27

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#9 2007-02-03 07:23:29

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#10 2007-02-03 07:24:54

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#11 2007-02-03 10:12:24

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#12 2007-02-03 21:27:12

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#13 2007-02-04 14:26:55

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

#14 2007-02-04 20:21:55

Re: Laptop fan loud and battery life poor? T60 Linux vs. XP

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