What is the best tool to extend battery life on Linux laptop?

Linux questions · 08-29-2018, 12:48 PM

I'm using elementary OS 4.1 Loki with the latest updates on a Lenovo IdeaPad 720. I have made a test on battery life: I plugged in my external hard drive and start a movie from there on full brightness with WiFi and without Bluetooth. On Windows 10 Pro after 2 hours the battery shows 68%. With elementary OS in the same situation this is only 50%. I have ran powertop and it showed 15w power useage.

pan64 · 08-30-2018, 05:49 AM

You need to find out what uses that battery. It can be even the player. I don't think you can install a software which will magically extend the battery life.

hydrurga · 08-30-2018, 05:59 AM

You could always try out tlp.

lougavulin · 08-30-2018, 06:43 AM

Mainly, two big differences are :
- Linux can easily have a lot of services running in background which are useless in this situation while Windows do not and provide much less services by default.
- Hardware, especially your graphic card. Most often drivers for Windows are provided and supports all optimization and options. On Linux your graphic card is maybe supported by default/generic drivers. And even officials drivers on Linux have less optimization and options.

rokytnji · 08-30-2018, 07:52 AM

1st hit

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/04/...ery-life-linux

2nd hit

https://askubuntu.com/questions/400/...-and-notebooks

Since ElementaryOS is just a Ubuntu spinoff.

https://itsfoss.com/speed-up-ubuntu-1310/

fatmac · 08-30-2018, 10:58 AM

Turn off your wifi if you're not using it, as well as bluetooth, (also you could spin down your disks too, if using HDD, & maybe switch off power to your USB).

Timothy Miller · 08-30-2018, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrurga

You could always try out tlp.

This would be my number one recommendation. TLP is pretty good out of the box with optimizations on battery.

Linux questions · 08-30-2018, 11:55 AM

I have installed and configured tlp and indicator-cpufreq and here is the result in powertop: https://pasteboard.co/HBAQXhX.jpg

pan64 · 08-30-2018, 12:24 PM

probably you need to try another player, like VLC.

ondoho · 08-30-2018, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Linux questions

I have installed and configured tlp and indicator-cpufreq and here is the result in powertop: https://pasteboard.co/HBAQXhX.jpg

video playback eats power, that's normal on all operating systems.
using a lighter media player (mpv is my rec.) or a lighter system altogether may help.
less GUI, more hotkeys.

pan64 · 08-30-2018, 01:56 PM

but also may depend on the video driver (if acceleration was available)

zeebra · 08-30-2018, 02:01 PM

Use a conservative cpu governor.

Code:

cpupower frequency-set -g conservative

ondoho · 08-31-2018, 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64

but also may depend on the video driver (if acceleration was available)

yes, i should have specified; software (cpu) decoding might take even more power than hardware (gpu) decoding, but in my experience it is a power hog in any case.

apart from things like gaming of course, and physically copying large amounts of data.

PS:
OP, you might want to show us if your laptop is set up properly:

Code:

lspci -k | grep -iEA5 'vga|3d|display'

and if you can, check which video output your current media player uses.

Linux questions · 08-31-2018, 11:17 AM

I've set the CPU governor to powersave.

Here is the output of

Code:

lspci -k | grep -iEA5 'vga|3d|display'

Code:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 5917 (rev 07)
	Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3979
	Kernel driver in use: i915
	Kernel modules: i915
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Lenovo Sunrise Point-LP USB 3.0 xHCI Controller
--
01:00.0 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Device 699f (rev c0)
	Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3804
	Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
	Kernel modules: amdgpu
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
	Subsystem: Lenovo RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller

And here is the output of

Code:

glxinfo | egrep "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer"

Code:

OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620 (Kabylake GT2)

I've also installed mpv.

After these "tweaks" I've made my test, and my battery is now at 57%.

pan64 · 08-31-2018, 12:29 PM

so you mean it is now better. You may want to start over, check again the actual situation.