Macbook (not pro) Core Duo power management

knysng · 2008-05-10 21:29:20

Hey,

I pretty new to Arch, but not new to linux. I fell in love with Arch the first time I booted it of the CD for installation.

I decided to install Arch on my macbook, because I need linux for work. It works well, I don't have fan-speed problems or touchpad problems, but I do have power management issues. I have install and configured CPUFREQ, laptop-more, acpid and kpowersave and I made sure that all of those daemons are running and working. Powertop reports that with turned down backlight the wattage never drops below 17.8 which is too high. OSX uses about 11.

Now I expect the wattage to drop to 11watts but I just don't understand what hardware is causing trouble. Even with the pure, standard installation of ARCH I still get 17-18 watts of power consumption without any programs running (except for cpufreq and backlight-control).

It's driving me completely nuts. I recompiled kernels with all kinds of patches. Please, someone help me!

Kenny

P.S.: Now I heard that the new version of ubuntu uses fewer watts... what the hell is that all about??!

Last edited by knysng (2008-05-11 01:19:41)

Aaron · 2008-05-12 22:28:45

Have you enabled the necessary Modules? Note these are not the same as daemons.

# modprobe acpi-cpufreq
# modprobe cpufreq_ondemand
# modprobe cpufreq_powersave

Or you can add them to the Modules array in rc.conf to probe them on startup.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CPU … cy_Scaling (Though I'm sure you've already read the wiki)

oringo · 2008-05-13 17:20:10

I have similar problems with my macbook pro. I've also tried acpi-cpufreq, and the problem still seems to there. The laptop still gets hot even when no program is running. Powertop seems to suggest that the CPUs are not spending enough time in S3 state to save power. Another big portion of that power consumption come from the 17' screen that I have, but that can be helped by lowering the brightness of the backlight.

knysng · 2008-05-13 23:26:11

I have all the necessary modules running, and I can confirm that CPUFREQ is running. That's not the problem. Even with cpufreq running (at powersave), laptop-mode running, ACPID running, and backlight all the way down I still don't make it below 15.4W. That's 3-4W more than OSX uses when idle-browsing on firefox with wireless activated.

For some reason, Linux in general? (maybe Arch?) does not turn off certain pieces of hardware OR doesn't turn on certain powersave-modes.

Aaron · 2008-05-14 04:02:50

Could you post the output of
#cpufreq-info

during a couple situations? Such as on a fresh boot, while you're working on the computer, while you're transcoding a video, etc etc.

You should see your CPU run at a slower clock speed when idle or under light load, and the GHZ should increase when under heavy stress such as encoding a video.

If your CPU speed stays the same no matter what, then we found the issue.

knysng · 2008-05-14 11:56:57

CPU freq-scaling is working perfectly. I included cpufeq-info output while idling (doing absolutely nothing) and compiling a Kernel. The ondemand governor scales each CPU individually; sometimes CPU 1 is at 1.67 - 2.0 while CPU 2 is at 1.00 and visa versa every other second.

I don't think frequency scaling is the answer to this problem I'm having. I think it's other hardware that is not properly supported by this flavor of linux at the moment. Here is a list of things I looked at:

1. Bluetooth - subsystem removed from kernel; no modules running/installed that would interact with this piece of hardware
2. Touchpad - Mactel patch removed the high number of interupts
3. Wireless - uses about 1.7 - 2.2Watts; I don't want to/cannot turn this one off!
4. Graphics - Intel 950G on board; xf86-Video-Intel driver installed. I know about the DRI issue eating up Watts. Would like to keep this on because of compiz. about 1.5 - 1.9 Watts... unsure about this one.
5. iSight Camera - No drivers installed, not activated??!?!
6. FireWire - Doesn't make a difference. Nothing attached to any of the ports!
7. ......

IDLE:

cpufrequtils 002: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2006
Report errors and bugs to linux@brodo.de, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
  hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.00 GHz
  available frequency steps: 2.00 GHz, 1.83 GHz, 1.67 GHz, 1.50 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1000 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: ondemand, powersave, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.00 GHz.
                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz.
analyzing CPU 1:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 1
  hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.00 GHz
  available frequency steps: 2.00 GHz, 1.83 GHz, 1.67 GHz, 1.50 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1000 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: ondemand, powersave, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.00 GHz.
                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz.

KERNEL COMPILATION:

cpufrequtils 002: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2006
Report errors and bugs to linux@brodo.de, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
  hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.00 GHz
  available frequency steps: 2.00 GHz, 1.83 GHz, 1.67 GHz, 1.50 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1000 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: ondemand, powersave, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.00 GHz.
                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 2.00 GHz.
analyzing CPU 1:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 1
  hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.00 GHz
  available frequency steps: 2.00 GHz, 1.83 GHz, 1.67 GHz, 1.50 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1000 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: ondemand, powersave, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.00 GHz.
                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz.

LSMOD:

Module                  Size  Used by
ipv6                  250052  10
wlan_wep                6144  1
i915                   28160  2
drm                    72344  3 i915
firewire_ohci          16512  0
firewire_core          36928  1 firewire_ohci
crc_itu_t               2304  1 firewire_core
tpm_infineon            8744  0
i2c_i801                9232  0
tpm                    12352  1 tpm_infineon
ohci1394               28720  0
pcspkr                  2816  0
tpm_bios                6144  1 tpm
ieee1394               79160  1 ohci1394
appletouch              9088  0
i2c_core               19348  1 i2c_i801
video                  16656  0
output                  3200  1 video
intel_agp              23740  1
agpgart                28116  3 drm,intel_agp
sg                     27572  0
joydev                 10048  0
evdev                   9344  13
hfsplus                73476  0
acpi_cpufreq            7564  1
snd_seq_oss            30208  0
snd_hda_intel         335896  1
snd_seq_midi_event      6656  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                48240  4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device          6796  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_hwdep               7428  1 snd_hda_intel
snd_pcm_oss            38304  0
snd_pcm                68868  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              19848  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc          8072  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd_mixer_oss          14720  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd                    46244  11 snd_seq_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mixer_oss
soundcore               6240  1 snd
wlan_scan_sta          13440  1
ath_rate_sample        14336  1
ath_pci               231608  0
wlan                  224368  5 wlan_wep,wlan_scan_sta,ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
ath_hal               249824  3 ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
sky2                   40964  0
rtc_cmos                9248  0
rtc_core               15388  1 rtc_cmos
rtc_lib                 3072  1 rtc_core
ext3                  123400  1
jbd                    40724  1 ext3
mbcache                 7044  1 ext3
usbhid                 42944  0
hid                    39168  1 usbhid
ff_memless              5128  1 usbhid
sd_mod                 23192  3
sr_mod                 15172  0
cdrom                  34080  1 sr_mod
ehci_hcd               33932  0
uhci_hcd               22288  0
usbcore               129904  5 appletouch,usbhid,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd
ata_piix               17412  2
ata_generic             5636  0
pata_acpi               4992  0
libata                141840  3 ata_piix,ata_generic,pata_acpi
dock                    7952  1 libata

Last edited by knysng (2008-05-14 11:57:43)

lucke · 2008-05-14 12:13:34

Perhaps following tips at www.lesswatts.org would help, if just a bit.

knysng · 2008-05-14 14:00:27

Went there and read through all of their advice thoroughly. Most of their technology advice and kernel patch are obsolete since 2.6.25.3; nevertheless, that website was really helpful when I first started on this issue. I recommend it to everyone trying the same, it's very interesting and I think that, in general, one of the biggest problems with Linux is it's inability to manage power consumption.

Last edited by knysng (2008-05-14 14:00:55)

Aaron · 2008-05-14 15:46:24

Well, I'm all out of ideas.

Hopefully you get this resolved. If you do, I would recommend adding it to the wiki so other users can benefit as well.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Macbook

Arch Linux

#1 2008-05-10 21:29:20

Macbook (not pro) Core Duo power management

#2 2008-05-12 22:28:45

Re: Macbook (not pro) Core Duo power management

#3 2008-05-13 17:20:10

Re: Macbook (not pro) Core Duo power management

#4 2008-05-13 23:26:11

Re: Macbook (not pro) Core Duo power management

#5 2008-05-14 04:02:50

Re: Macbook (not pro) Core Duo power management

#6 2008-05-14 11:56:57

Re: Macbook (not pro) Core Duo power management

#7 2008-05-14 12:13:34

Re: Macbook (not pro) Core Duo power management

#8 2008-05-14 14:00:27

Re: Macbook (not pro) Core Duo power management

#9 2008-05-14 15:46:24

Re: Macbook (not pro) Core Duo power management

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