Slackware 14 (64-Bit Install) on laptop = Terrible battery life?
First post here. New to the forums. Linux novice.
I just installed Slack on to my laptop this morning while it was charging. I got the install and everything. Played around while it was charging. Now, I take my laptop off the charger and near 30 minutes later, the battery life is nearing 55%. Is battery life an issue with anyone else, or is it something I'm doing? |
Hello iiClouds, welcome to LQ and Slackware,
I have a subnotebook (Lenovo x100e, AMD, 2GB of RAM) with Slackware64-14 and the batterylife is more or less the same like with Windows 7 on the same computer. Note that I have configured for low CPU-frequency (governor conservative), you'll find a tutorial here: http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:har...quency_scaling But how about the batterylife on your laptop with Windows? Did you have another Linuxdistribution on the computer before you installed Slackware? And please tell us which Laptop you have (architecture, RAM etc.). Do the functionkeys work? can you configure the brightness of the screen (backlight)? Markus |
I too have the same kind of results with battery life, it seems like there is no battery life. I have to run my laptop with AC plugged when using Slackware 14 - Windows I can run for a few hours before it drops to an unusable state.
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Would be nice to get some more infos:
- Which hardware are you using? - Which drivers? - Is the CPU frequency scaling configured and working? - Do you have laptop-mode-tools installed and configured? |
Actually pm-utils is doing things very well for me.
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pm-utils are a set of tools for setting your system to suspend or hibernate. How does that prevent the battery from draining if the system is running?
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I have a Toshiba z830 running 14.0 at the moment. Under windows it was getting ~5 hours battery life. With a stock Slackware install I would get ~3 hours battery life. Luckily however, I found this page at the linux laptop wiki. Adding the following lines to my lilo kernel boot parameters gives me 5-6 hours battery life in Slackware depending on how aggressive I am with screen brightness.
Code:
append="acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.lvds_downclock=1 elevator=noop vt.default_utf8=0" |
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Code:
$ grep power.d /var/log/packages/pm-utils-* |
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Use BattStat on the pre-installed OS to look for the time/wattage you are aiming for, then compare the readouts of powertop to it. |
It's going to depend on what hardware/drivers you're using, but on my Intel Core i3 (Sandybridge) laptop with Intel HD 3000 graphics I get a couple more hours of battery life after applying these tweaks:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...15_power&num=1 Now I get around 5-6 hours in Slackware64 14.0, which is the same as I got in Windows. |
My battery life while doing the same stuff in Windows is usually about 2 and a half hours. I'm going to try setting the governor to something different. I'll report back tomorrow with what I get.
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My setup:
MacBook Pro 8,1 + mountain lion os: about 6 hours MacBook Pro 8,1 + Slackware 14.0 x86_64: about 3 hours after tweaks to save some power. Not satisfied for the battery life under slackware! |
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There is a little bit of info on some of the options in the Phoronix link that Piratesmack linked. I think they're all pretty harmless, I haven't noticed any negative efftects, only a doubling in battery life heh.. |
Keep in mind that a bad battery life can also be caused by using the free drivers if you have a AMD/ATI or Nvidia videochip in your notebook.
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Try using this package from SlackBuilds and see if it helps with maintaining your battery.
http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14...op-mode-tools/ Also, you will want to use the proprietary drivers for any video hardware you have as they will contain more power saving tools and management options. |
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Member Response
Hi,
I agree with TobiSGD, battery life will also depend on your graphics chipset. Noticed major differences when using the Intel graphics and then switch to Nvidia via BumbleBee-Optirun switching. While using the Nvidia then battery life is cut in half. |
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As for me, my laptop gets a pretty solid hour and a half no matter what the system (Windows or Linux), although I have never tested laptop-mode-tools. I'll give it a spin to see how it works! Thanks. |
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It shows how to address possible conflicts (add "#Troubleshooting" to above address or scroll to bottom of page), but pm-utils and laptop-mode-tools do not appear mutually exclusive if you inactivate the overlap in their actions. |
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