Battery Life

[redjama]

I have an Acer Aspire 3680.  Im running 4.6.4 I am aving issues with battery life.  Unplugged and running straiht from battery Im lucky to get 1 hr standby time. I have set the power profiles to aggressive powersave when unplugged and it does absoluley nothing. On windows the battery last anywhere from 4-6 in stand by and about 2-3 while im actually using depending on what it is im doing.  I have no other problems what so ever with this machine other then my battery life.  Any ideas??

Im using this kernel..........kernel-2.6.33.7-pclos4.bfs
i686 linux kernel with the BFS scheduler

[T6]

time to upgrade kernel

about the laptop, what laptop is it?

cpufreq-info, what does it report?

[redjama]

Code: [Select]

[brian@localhost ~]$ cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 008: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009
Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: p4-clockmod
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
  maximum transition latency: 10.00 ms.
  hardware limits: 233 MHz - 1.87 GHz
  available frequency steps: 233 MHz, 467 MHz, 700 MHz, 933 MHz, 1.17 GHz, 1.40 GHz, 1.63 GHz, 1.87 GHz
  available cpufreq governors: ondemand, conservative, powersave, userspace, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 700 MHz and 1.87 GHz.
                  The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 1.87 GHz.

Its an Acer Aspire 3680

[T6]

in that report, is it connected or in battery?

the steps, i think that there is something wrong, a step on 233mhz?!?

normally the smallest step is 800mhz

[redjama]

Its connected...............here is the report running on battery

Code: [Select]

[brian@localhost ~]$ cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 008: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009
Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: p4-clockmod
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
  maximum transition latency: 10.00 ms.
  hardware limits: 233 MHz - 1.87 GHz
  available frequency steps: 233 MHz, 467 MHz, 700 MHz, 933 MHz, 1.17 GHz, 1.40 GHz, 1.63 GHz, 1.87 GHz
  available cpufreq governors: ondemand, conservative, powersave, userspace, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 700 MHz and 1.87 GHz.
                  The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 1.87 GHz.

[redjama]

the steps, i think that there is something wrong, a step on 233mhz?!?

normally the smallest step is 800mhz

LOL..i have no idea.

[T6]

both reports are showing maximum speed, 1.83ghz

try multiple times when on battery, run the same command

it seems that is not doing any stepping, it should go to 1.4 or 1.13 on battery if you are not running much apps

[redjama]

Right now the only thing i have going on is firefox, nothing else and its showing 50 mins left of battery and I just unplugged it.  How do i get it to change??  Like the governors, how do I change them??

[redjama]

Ive checked it about 6 times now even did a reboot, still showing the same thing.  Is it a kernel prob??

[T6]

in kde there was a option to force it to run slower or faster

on recent versions cpufreq should do it

the battery monitor has some profiles but none offers control over the cpu

your is probably the third report of cpufreq not doing what is supposed to in recent times

each post is approaching differently to the problem, i remember something about modprobe cpufreq but can't remember where i read it

[T6]

a new kernel doesn't hurt and the one you have will eventually give you problems with new kde versions

2.6.32 gave some problems to many persons with the xorg update

[redjama]

Il try a diff kernel and see what happens. Gimme about 10 mins and ill report back....lol

[coco]

I have the same problem and the kernel is not the problem.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KDE#Power_Saving

[redjama]

Well i tried 3 diff kernels al the same verdict.  Was able to change the the governor to powersave which drops it to 700 mhz, dont know the battery life yet cause i had to charge up.  Will post if extends life.

Code: [Select]

cpufreq-set -g powersave
Us that in root to change the setting, none of the other ones work they all stay at 1.87mh

[redjama]

OK well no matter what  do i still get about an hr of life from the battery.  I cant get the profile to stay on powersave.  Every time I reboot it goes back to performance. How do I get it to stay on what I want???