Optimizing laptop battery power-usage

[wretchedneo]

I'm leaving some of my tlp configurations, and my powertop stats.
is this amount of power consumption normal? - if not then please lend me some of your suggestions.

Distribution: Void Linux
Kernel: 6.12.21_1

 

[Brickwizard]

there is an app called TLP in most distribution repositories

 

[wretchedneo]

These are TLP stats

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@wretchedneo
Look for the following settings in your BIOS, probably under overclocking or CPU menu:

• USB Standby Power at S4/S5
• Package C-state limit
• Intel C-state
• Intel Speed Shift Technology
• Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology - EIST
• Intel adaptive thermal monitor

 

[Brickwizard]

There doesn't seem to me to be anything drastically wrong from what I see, so my first question is what is the battery life in normal use with windows [if you had it running] and is there a big drop when doing the same thing with Linux,?

Have you checked the battery status [inxi -B] will give a quick view or [upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0] will give you a full report

 

[wretchedneo]

@wretchedneo
Look for the following settings in your BIOS, probably under overclocking or CPU menu:

• USB Standby Power at S4/S5
• Package C-state limit
• Intel C-state
• Intel Speed Shift Technology
• Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology - EIST
• Intel adaptive thermal monitor

I did find Intel C-states, and Speed shift- and they are all enabled.
but unfortuantely none of the other things you mentioned were found

 

[wretchedneo]

There doesn't seem to me to be anything drastically wrong from what I see, so my first question is what is the battery life in normal use with windows [if you had it running] and is there a big drop when doing the same thing with Linux,?

Have you checked the battery status [inxi -B] will give a quick view or [upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0] will give you a full report

On windows, it gives a max of 5-6 hours
On linux it's around 3 hours or 3.5 occasionally

Also the output of [inxi -B]:
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 4.4 Wh (12.5%) condition: 35.3/37.7 Wh (93.6%)
volts: 10.2 min: 11.1

 

[Brickwizard]

Battery is great, with that drop in usable hours, I would be looking for erroneous apps running in the background

 

[wretchedneo]

Battery is great, with that drop in usable hours, I would be looking for erroneous apps running in the background

can you give some examples?
I only have tlp, gpm (for tty mouse), network manager, and other system essentials like acpid, NTP, and udevd in my services on runit

 

[Brickwizard]

I run a del Laptop, on battery I get around 12 hrs of off-line use, 18 hrs surfing and 8 hrs streaming, which is the same as windows usage.
All I have is Tlp on standard settings and no graphic acceleration

 

[wretchedneo]

I run a del Laptop, on battery I get around 12 hrs of off-line use, 18 hrs surfing and 8 hrs streaming, which is the same as windows usage.
All I have is Tlp on standard settings and no graphic acceleration

Maybe there's something wrong with the kernel?
what distribution do you use?

 

[Brickwizard]

I have 2 on this machine, both Debian based, Mint LMDE and Parrotsec [they do a home version for daily use]

I tried Ubuntu based mint but found it a tad slow and yes it did use a little more battery but not as bad as your loss.

 

[wretchedneo]

I have 2 on this machine, both Debian based, Mint LMDE and Parrotsec [they do a home version for daily use]

I tried Ubuntu based mint but found it a tad slow and yes it did use a little more battery but not as bad as your loss.

I will have a look at mint and compare the battery usage.
also i use a hard disk drive, does that make a difference?

 

[Brickwizard]

I will have a look at mint a

Look at Mint LMDE6 not mint 22

i use a hard disk drive, does that make a difference?

oh, yes the old plate spinner beside being very slow these days uses a lot more power than a SATA SSD [especially large volume ones]
Depending on the make and age of your machine,if possible fitting a M2 SSD or M2Nvme are noticeably faster and use a little less power than a SATA SSD

 

[wretchedneo]

Look at Mint LMDE6 not mint 22

oh, yes the old plate spinner beside being very slow these days uses a lot more power than a SATA SSD [especially large volume ones]
Depending on the make and age of your machine,if possible fitting a M2 SSD or M2Nvme are noticeably faster and use a little less power than a SATA SSD

I use this system over a sata-to-usb bridge

 

[CaffeineAddict]

also i use a hard disk drive, does that make a difference?

Since you experienced less power use on Windows than Linux then I wouldn't blame hardware since that same HDD was used on Windows.

If 2 OS's produce different results it's therefore software issue, like drivers or power saving modes.

 

[wretchedneo]

Since you experienced less power use on Windows than Linux then I wouldn't blame hardware since that same HDD was used on Windows.

If 2 OS's produce different results it's therefore software issue, like drivers or power saving modes.

I don't have a personal machine yet therefore i have to use my sister's laptop
She has windows on an nvme ssd
So the only choice i have is to run my own os from an external hard-drive

Hence the power-consumption was better on windows with nvme-ssd
and worse on void linux with hdd on a [sata-to-usb] bridge

 

[Brickwizard]

So the only choice i have is to run my own os from an external hard-drive

if you can afford a small volume [60gb is ok to learn Linux with] second hand SATA SSD, you will notice improvement

 

[wretchedneo]

if you can afford a small volume [60gb is ok to learn Linux with] second hand SATA SSD, you will notice improvement

This can indeed happen as storage price are pretty cheap nowadays, will sure look into this!