Poor Battery Life

Discussion in 'Linux' started by Boffy, Oct 27, 2008.

  1. Boffy

    Boffy

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    Why is the battery life so much lower running ubuntu. On my system I'm lucky to get 2hrs on battery in ubuntu but I get almost 3 on other distros.
     
    Boffy, Oct 27, 2008
    #1
  2. Boffy

    dattaway

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    Intel wrote a nice utility called powertop. It shows what processes are using the cpu and how much power they are using. It also makes recommendations how to reduce this power.
     
    dattaway, Oct 27, 2008
    #2
  3. Boffy

    2manydjs

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    Which distro's did you use to get 3 hours? Thanks!
     
    2manydjs, Oct 29, 2008
    #3
  4. Boffy

    Boffy

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    I've used powertop and it hasn't made that much different. To be honest I'm happy to live with the battery life as it is at present. I got 2:45 on the default distro the first time I used my machine. Since then nothing that good.
     
    Boffy, Oct 29, 2008
    #4
  5. Boffy

    colcoomagnumar

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    I bought my AA1 only two days ago, installed Ubuntu 8.10 on it, and only get about an hour and 50 minutes on it before the battery runs completely dry. I don't even run Compiz, turn wireless off and the brightness is usually medium to low... (gave it a bit of a benchmark on a train journey the other day)

    I remember dual-booting between Vista and Ubuntu on a Dell Inspiron 1501, and Ubuntu (I think 7.10 at the time) was really bad for battery life too (whereas Vista's "power saving" mode was amazingly good)

    There doesn't seem to be a lot of functionality in Ubuntu to save power..... It's quite a shame because a major point of me buying a netbook was long battery life... :S

    Still, i'm about to try out that Intel app to see what's hogging the power so thanks for that tip!
     
    colcoomagnumar, Nov 2, 2008
    #5
  6. Boffy

    Tamrac

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    Yeah, all of us wanted netbooks to have long battery life. But oh well, they don't hehehe. That's the reason most have 6 cell versions now to compensate. Anyway, have you tried Mandriva 2009? I get 2:30 average w/c is better than what I got with XP w/c was 2hrs.
     
    Tamrac, Nov 2, 2008
    #6
  7. Boffy

    Afterimage

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    I'm using Ubuntu 8.10 with the Netbook Remix, and I get two different battery life readings, I'm not sure which one to believe.

    The default Gnome Power Manager tells me I have 1 hr 45 mins on a full charge at most. However Using the Battery Charge Monitor, it tells me I have 2 hrs 45 mins on a full charge. I know they're just estimates, since I see the battery life percentage dropping off quite quickly....so I'm thinking true battery life is somewhere in between those estimates, just around 2 hrs.

    I'm guessing Ubuntu is a heck of a lot more system intensive than Linpus Linux Lite or XP is. Ubuntu seems to have an average of around 40% system load at idle on my One.
     
    Afterimage, Nov 2, 2008
    #7
  8. Boffy

    Nudnik_de

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    I was running the Kubuntu 8.10 Beta for a while and the battery life was around 2 hrs. Since the upgrade to Kubuntu 8.10 Final I realized a significant improvement. Actually Battery is lasting 2:30 with Wifi and low brightness.
     
    Nudnik_de, Nov 4, 2008
    #8
  9. Boffy

    diverbelow

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    I too bought a Linux netbook for the battery life. Linpus lasted little over 3 hours each time. When Ubuntu 8.10 came out, I switch to Ubuntu Remix, and did some tweaks as powertop recommends and getting 2 hours and 45 minutes. I think I could get more, if I knew a while to turn off the web cam. It seems to be on all the time, according to powertop.

    Tonight or this weekend, I am going to install the Ubuntu umpc release, to see if it has better power management.

    NOTE: When I first got my One, the first week I totally drained the battery; then charged it back up and repeated the process at 4 times. I forgot where I read that, but for me it is working.


    UPDATE: I just install umpc last night, and my battery life is almost 3 hours. It could be possible to get more battery life, if you was able to turn off the web cam and need to fix the WiFi switch.
     
    diverbelow, Nov 4, 2008
    #9
  10. Boffy

    jaydon34

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    The best bet is to purchase a 6-cell unit and sell the other unit like I did or get a 6-cell battery. With the 6-cell this AcerOne became my ultimate travel companion.
     
    jaydon34, Nov 4, 2008
    #10
  11. Boffy

    ags

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    Yes, I found the same problem. Powertop reports that the web cam is on 100% of the time. Checking the /sys files showed that the USB ports were not in power save even though I had applied the tweaks in the wiki.

    Turns out that the wiki has some longstanding errors. These lines in the Ubuntu wiki don't work:
    Code:
    # Decrease power usage of USB while idle
    [ -L /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-5/power/level ] && echo auto > /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-5/power/level
    [ -L /sys/bus/usb/devices/5-5/power/level ] && echo auto > /sys/bus/usb/devices/5-5/power/level
    
    These equivalent lines in the A110 wiki don't work either:
    Code:
    # Decrease power usage of USB while idle
    [ -x /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-5/power/level ] && echo auto > /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-5/power/level
    [ -x /sys/bus/usb/devices/5-5/power/level ] && echo auto > /sys/bus/usb/devices/5-5/power/level
    
    The problem is the test conditional; '-L' checks for symbolic link (it's not), while '-x' checks for executable (it's not). The second line ('5-5') controls the webcam, while the first line ('1-5') does not have any use?

    Here is the fix:
    Code:
    # Decrease power usage of USB while idle
    [ -w /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-5/power/level ] && echo auto > /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-5/power/level
    [ -w /sys/bus/usb/devices/5-5/power/level ] && echo auto > /sys/bus/usb/devices/5-5/power/level
    
    After this the webcam does go into power save mode and PowerTop confirms this. :)

    Can others please check and confirm before the wiki gets updated.
     
    ags, Nov 8, 2008
    #11
  12. Boffy

    SuzuKube

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    I confirm that your line with the "w" Works ;)
     
    SuzuKube, Nov 9, 2008
    #12
  13. Boffy

    lotus49

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    You didn't do your homework did you?

    The One is a great machine and I love mine, but the battery life is frankly poor and pretty much every review I have read has pointed this out.

    There are three different batteries 2200mAh (some machines come with the slightly better 2400), 4400mAh and 6600mAh. The battery life on mine with the 2200 battery is about two hours. If you buy the largest, you may get 5-6 hours which isn't bad, but you are never going to get mobile phone style battery life out of any netbook (unfortunately).

    I do agree that the power saving features on Ubuntu aren't that great but the problem with such features from my perspective is the impact they have on usability. The screen is one of the biggest power draws, so turning brightness right down can make a big difference. Unfortunately, I hate dim screens so I always turn mine up to full. Another power saving feature is turning wireless off, but no network connection makes the machine fairly useless, to me at least. Processor speed scaling can be worthwhile, but this is normally best-supported by Windows (I am sad to say).

    Your best bet is to buy a spare 6600mAh battery and just live with the extra weight.
     
    lotus49, Nov 9, 2008
    #13
  14. Boffy

    2manydjs

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    Great find! Thanks.
     
    2manydjs, Nov 10, 2008
    #14
  15. Boffy

    hardran3

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    hardran3, Nov 11, 2008
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  16. Boffy

    2manydjs

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    Powertop advises me to kill gnome-power-manager as it would be depreciated (I'm running 8.10). When I kill it, my power-usage goes down about 0.3-0.5W. Unfortunately it also kills my battery icon and I expect my computer doesn't go to suspend at the end of its battery life.

    Is it really depreciated? And if so do I have an alternative?

    Thanks
     
    2manydjs, Nov 16, 2008
    #16
  17. Boffy

    2manydjs

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    2manydjs, Nov 26, 2008
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