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#1 2007-02-12 08:48:13

no24
Member
Registered: 2007-01-31
Posts: 62

T60 battery drains quickly

Hi,

After recently installing arch on my T60, i noticed that it seems like the battery life is substantially poorer than when I run xp. Although I havent measured anything specifically, i've sat here for 30 minutes and watched my battery life drop from full to 72%. I'm utilizing a wireless network and have the brightness at 70%, and I am utilizing the ondemand governor although i havent subjected the notebook to anything except minor web browsing. This behavior seems consistent over the past few weeks, anyway.

I have noticed that the fan seems to constantly be "on" this entire time, but I was wondering if anybody else had this issue or I'm just being crazy. here's some output.

Every 1.0s: cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/*   

alarm:                   6738 mWh
present:                 yes
design capacity:         56160 mWh
last full capacity:      56160 mWh
battery technology:      rechargeable
design voltage:          10800 mV
design capacity warning: 2808 mWh
design capacity low:     200 mWh
capacity granularity 1:  1 mWh
capacity granularity 2:  1 mWh
model number:            92P1141
serial number:            2317
battery type:            LION
OEM info:                SONY
present:                 yes
capacity state:          ok
charging state:          discharging
present rate:            25167 mW
remaining capacity:      39060 mWh
present voltage:         11156 mV

and

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 14
model name      : Genuine Intel(R) CPU           T2500  @ 2.00GHz
stepping        : 8
cpu MHz         : 1000.000
cache size      : 2048 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx constant_tsc pni monitor vmx est tm2 xtpr
bogomips        : 3995.33

processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 14
model name      : Genuine Intel(R) CPU           T2500  @ 2.00GHz
stepping        : 8
cpu MHz         : 1000.000
cache size      : 2048 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 1
cpu cores       : 2
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx constant_tsc pni monitor vmx est tm2 xtpr
bogomips        : 3990.19

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#2 2007-02-12 16:42:47

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

I should probably time mine.  I mostly leave it plugged in, but i could have sworn I had decent battery life.

I'll post more info when I get home /me tags this thread

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#3 2007-02-13 02:36:57

no24
Member
Registered: 2007-01-31
Posts: 62

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

thanks phrakture. it's way better with XP, although somehow i doubt your battery life is as poor as mine. im probably misconfigured in some manner or missed something.

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#4 2007-02-13 06:50:06

bangkok_manouel
Member
From: indicates a starting point
Registered: 2005-02-07
Posts: 1,556

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

Running laptop-mode-tools may help too.

HTH

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#5 2007-02-13 23:38:12

e_tank
Member
Registered: 2006-12-21
Posts: 80

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

i have a t60p, although i don't know how long my battery lasts exactly i believe it's somewhere between 2 to 3 hours.  i'll try and post some more accurate times later.  mine also came with a panasonic battery, not a sony (less explosive).  you may be able to get a replacement, did you check if your battery was included in the recent recall?  your model number indicates it may have been, check out this page to find out for sure if you haven't already.

oh and as for the fan being on a lot, if you have an ati gpu it's probably due to your video card.  for one thing all the ati gpus used in the various t60 models do run hot, and this is normal.  mine has a firegl v5250 and it runs hotter in arch when in an x session than it does in windows (mine averages about 5 degree's hotter), which i would assume is due to ati's half assed drivers.  my gpu idles around 68c when i use the powersave governer, and only a degree or two hotter when using the ondemand governer (probably because of the cpu and gpu sharing the same heatsink/spreader).  i don't believe i've ever seen the fan off once when running an x session.  i've noticed in windows that my fan will only go off when the gpu temp is < 65.  it's nothing to worry about though as these kinds of temps are common for the t60/p.

if bothers you you can take over fan control from the bios.  personally i'd rather deal with the noise than a hotter gpu.

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#6 2007-02-14 00:49:32

no24
Member
Registered: 2007-01-31
Posts: 62

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

thanks for the info. it seems as though it comes and goes, and yea it is a ATI gpu. right now im on AC and its dead quiet.

i dont think my battery is part of the recall, but the thing that is odd and bugs me most is that the battery life is significantly better when I boot XP. I definitely dont get 2-3 hours when im on battery in arch, but i definitely do in xp.

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#7 2007-02-14 01:04:29

no24
Member
Registered: 2007-01-31
Posts: 62

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

there is a post in ubuntuforums that the x1400 ati card scales down in XP but it does not in linux, and may be responsible for the difference in battery life performance. is this true and can it be changed?

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#8 2007-02-14 04:52:39

wideeye
Member
Registered: 2006-09-30
Posts: 32

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

i have a t60p and a 9 cell battery. the best times iwere with laptop-mode on, 'aticonfig --set-powerstate=1' to drop the gpu speed, commit=360 for mounted ext3 partitions, and hdparm to spin down the disk aggressively. just getting the hd stopped gives me at least 20% more battery life. with all that i've seen 4 hours not doing much more then taking notes. but normal browsing and music listening usually gives 3 hours.

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#9 2007-02-14 08:44:03

no24
Member
Registered: 2007-01-31
Posts: 62

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

ill try using aticonfig to reduce gpu speed.

what does commit=360 do? and how to go about it?

and doesnt laptop-mode aggressively spin down the disk, cancelling the need for hdparm? are you worried about data loss?

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#10 2007-02-14 08:50:16

no24
Member
Registered: 2007-01-31
Posts: 62

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

im hesitant to pursue any of these fixes

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_w … tch_noises

for reducing the annoying noise when cpu is in C3 (switches over when on battery) because then it would just worsen my battery life issue =T.

anybody have the high pitched noise problem or use any of those fixes?

I guess I should first try recompiling the kernel with the timer interrupt frequency set at 100 before disabling the C3 cpu state.

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#11 2007-02-14 09:07:45

Snarkout
Member
Registered: 2005-11-13
Posts: 542

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

I have a t43 that emits a very annoying high pitched rapid beeping sound - I tried several of the "fixes" I've seen online, and basically none of them did anything.  At this point I don't really notice it unless I'm in a completely quiet room.


Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
-Albert Einstein

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#12 2007-02-14 11:25:59

Sigi
Member
From: Thurgau, Switzerland
Registered: 2005-09-22
Posts: 1,131

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

I solved this issue by putting this

echo 3 > /sys/module/processor/parameters/max_cstate

into the .bashrc of root. (There may be better ways to do this but it works great here)

FYI - I'm also using a T43.

Cheers Sigi

edit: /etc/rc.local seems to be the better place for this...

Last edited by Sigi (2007-02-14 22:55:05)


Haven't been here in a while. Still rocking Arch. smile

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#13 2007-02-15 22:45:46

no24
Member
Registered: 2007-01-31
Posts: 62

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

my t60 makes the annoying noise at cstate 3 =T id have to set max to 2 but suffer the consequences of even shorter battery life.

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#14 2007-03-15 01:13:32

no24
Member
Registered: 2007-01-31
Posts: 62

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

can anyone help? i've recently switched to XP for some powerpoint work, and the battery life is definitely and significantly longer. strange thing is, i dont remember having a battery life problem on my ubuntu install.. but that's gone now im only dual booting xp and arch.

my cpu's are scaled down, laptopmode is on.. but it really seems to be more significant than 20-30 minutes of difference, the battery drops rather quickly, probably lasts about 40-60% compared to the XP install... same brightness etc. configurations. non-tasking apps.. just sitting there it drains quickly. close to 1%/minute even when idle?

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#15 2007-03-15 01:29:04

no24
Member
Registered: 2007-01-31
Posts: 62

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

actually im pretty sure i had the same problem in ubuntu too, i just didnt use it long enough to notice and at the time i was still trying to get everything to work and was pretty new to linux.

didnt notice the problem until i finally got settled in.

ive tried scaling down my GPU too.. doesnt help much. sigh.

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#16 2007-03-15 01:40:55

.:B:.
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2006-11-26
Posts: 5,819
Website

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

no24 wrote:

thanks phrakture. it's way better with XP, although somehow i doubt your battery life is as poor as mine. im probably misconfigured in some manner or missed something.

The wireless consumes a lot of power too. Unlike the Windows driver, which tries to economise heavily (up to loosing the signal...), the linux driver from Intel does not do that.

Also, turning down your screen's brightness might help too.

My laptop's advertised autonomy is 3 hours, i got close to that on Windows (when it was still on it). It has Arch on it now, and i get almost three hours too... Pretty even. I do turn of wireless & turn down the brightness of the screen when i work mobile though.


Got Leenucks? :: Arch: Power in simplicity :: Get Counted! Registered Linux User #392717 :: Blog thingy

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#17 2007-03-15 02:13:54

no24
Member
Registered: 2007-01-31
Posts: 62

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

strange..

im just trying to achieve similar results with windows and arch. im pretty sure i tried disabling wireless before but ill try it again and see if there's a significant difference. im quite certain it did not though.

here and there i see reports of people (i notice thinkpads often) that have only 60% of the capacity attained under xp, but just as many reports of people with the same or higher battery performance.

i feel like there's just one issue that is being overlooked. sigh.

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#18 2007-03-15 08:05:52

Sigi
Member
From: Thurgau, Switzerland
Registered: 2005-09-22
Posts: 1,131

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

I don't know the "one overlooked issue", but if there IS one, I'd definitly like to know about it! wink

Now to something completely different:
Has anyone hdapsd working under kernel 2.6.20.*? (I haven't investigated in this yet, I just thought about it)


Haven't been here in a while. Still rocking Arch. smile

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#19 2007-03-23 10:17:30

wideeye
Member
Registered: 2006-09-30
Posts: 32

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

commit is a mount option, either "mount -o,remount,commit=180 /"or add it to fstab. should be under ext3 in man mount. it stops ext from flushing (writing) to the disk every 5 seconds. there's more chance of losing the last few minutes of saves. but i haven't had any issues so far.

the hdaps motion sensor works fine as a joystick, it's built as a module in the arch kernel. to park the hard drive (as the windows driver does) requires a kernel patch as well as running a daemon the last i checked, so I haven't tried that yet. The best info i found on howto do that was on the thinkwiki site.

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#20 2007-03-23 14:55:09

Snarkout
Member
Registered: 2005-11-13
Posts: 542

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

Does windows undervolt by default, possibly?


Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
-Albert Einstein

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#21 2007-03-23 21:58:47

sh__
Member
Registered: 2005-07-19
Posts: 272

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

Snarkout wrote:

Does windows undervolt by default, possibly?

I think you need to install something like Notebook Hardware Control for undervolting in windows.

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#22 2007-04-13 16:35:15

peterk0
Member
Registered: 2006-07-19
Posts: 34

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

I'm with Thinkpad Z61m and poor battery life in linux is one of the most annoying thing and also one of the last "stopper" on the way to pure linux system, sadly sad

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#23 2007-06-17 16:59:28

cbxzcm
Member
Registered: 2007-06-17
Posts: 18

Re: T60 battery drains quickly

Have you tried using PowerTOP (http://www.linuxpowertop.org?  It's in AUR right now and it helped me lower the overall wattage on my X60s.  I notice in the first post that your wattage is ridiculously high. 25 watts? Holy crap! yikes

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