Idle power consumption in arch twice as high as Windows 7?

clesch · 2010-05-19 11:07:38

I have some issues with power consumption in Linux.

Here's the rough setup:

i5 750, stock settings
Asus P7P55D-E premium
HD5770
LSI-3081-E
8 WD20EADS
2 X-25M G2
Enermax Modu 87+

The whole system as listed above idles in Windows 7 at 59.7W with all but one SSD spun down and at 122.8W in archlinux, also with everything but the root SSD sleeping.
I've also disconnected the power of all drives and the result was roughly the same.

I've already installed cpufreq-utils, acpi-cpufreq is loaded on startup and the governor is ondemand (50% threshold). cpufreq-utils indicates that the processor idles at 1.20 Ghz as it should be.
Catalyst 10.4 is also installed and should take care of the HD5770, I've verified that atieventsd (which is supposed to be responsible for the power management) is running even though it isn't in my rc.conf, probably because it gets loaded with the fglrx module.

Any ideas what could possibly cause the idle power consumption to be twice as high in arch?

Last edited by clesch (2010-05-19 11:10:33)

lymphatik · 2010-05-19 11:52:54

try powertop to track down what is drawing that much power. But you might not be able to lower below Win7, which is normqlly optimized for low power consumption. (Thanks those driver optimized for that).

demian · 2010-05-19 11:56:05

Well, there's not much left, is there? It pretty much has to be the 5770.

You could install powertop though, to verify if the p and c states get used correctly.

lymphatik · 2010-05-19 12:37:17

demian wrote:

Well, there's not much left, is there? It pretty much has to be the 5770.
You could install powertop though, to verify if the p and c states get used correctly.

Yes it is likely but you should verify to be sure. And if it is the case (I am not a pro about ati driver) I think you have to wait for better power management. This should come soon if I remember correctly what I read on phoronix

demian · 2010-05-19 13:13:31

lymphatik wrote:

demian wrote:
Well, there's not much left, is there? It pretty much has to be the 5770.
You could install powertop though, to verify if the p and c states get used correctly.
Yes it is likely but you should verify to be sure.

I would if i could. You probably want to address clesch instead of me .

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-19 11:07:38

Idle power consumption in arch twice as high as Windows 7?

#2 2010-05-19 11:52:54

Re: Idle power consumption in arch twice as high as Windows 7?

#3 2010-05-19 11:56:05

Re: Idle power consumption in arch twice as high as Windows 7?

#4 2010-05-19 12:37:17

Re: Idle power consumption in arch twice as high as Windows 7?

#5 2010-05-19 13:13:31

Re: Idle power consumption in arch twice as high as Windows 7?

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