Power Consumption TESTS AA110

I've been reading a lot of posts asking about the power consumption levels of the AA110.

I did some Power Consumption tests on my machine and decided to post the results here if anyone is interested.
(When I upgrade to a touch screen I will do some further testing for comparison)

Spec:
Model : ZG5
Intel ATOM 1.6 GHz CPU
8.9 " Screen
8Gig Solid State Drive
Upgraded to 1.5Gig of RAM.

Environment :
LINUX: Linpus Lite (customised),
Minimum screen dim level adjusted to allow lower brightness.
Hard Drive tweak to remove sequential elevator option
Removed SWAP Partition & resized SSD
Fan adjusted to turn on at 75 degrees (instead of the default 55 degrees I believe).



1. BASE TEST with
VOLUME SET TO MINIMUM & TURNED OFF
SCREEN BRIGHTNESS SET TO MINIMUM
WIRELESS CONNECTION ON
EXTERNAL USB MOUSE CONNECTED (states on label Power Consumption: 250mw, 50mA)

Power consumption - 1 min intervals :
8078 mw
8035 mw
7916 mw
8845 mw
7992 mw
7981 mw
AVERAGE : 8141 mw

2. TESTS SAME AS BASE TEST with
WIRELESS CONNECTION OFF

Power consumption - 1 min intervals :
8132 mw
7819 mw
7851 mw
7873 mw
7851 mw
7894 mw
AVERAGE : 7903 mw

3. TEST SAME AS BASE TEST with
BACKLIGHT TURNED OFF (hold function key 'fn' & press 'F6' simultaneously)

Power consumption - 1 min intervals :
7830 mw
7873 mw
8283 mw
7916 mw
7959 mw
7873 mw
7916 mw
AVERAGE : 7950 mw

4. TEST SAME AS BASE TEST with
SOUND TURNED ON & SET TO FULL VOLUME
NO WIRESSLESS CONNECTION

Power consumption - 1 min intervals :
8499 mw
7873 mw
7894 mw
8197 mw
7916 mw
7938 mw
7981 mw
7916 mw
AVERAGE : 7042 mw

5. TEST SAME AS BASE TEST with
SOUND TURNED ON & SET TO FULL VOLUME

Power consumption - 1 min intervals :
9190 mw
9072 mw
10119 mw
9428 mw
9147 mw
10324 mw
AVERAGE : 9547 mw

6. SAME AS BASE TEST with
NO EXTERNAL USB MOUSE CONNECTED (states on label Power Consumption: 250mw, 50mA)

Power consumption - 1 min intervals :
8823 mw
10627 mw
8942 mw
8888 mw
9104 mw
8942 mw
8964 mw
AVERAGE : 9184 mw

7. SAME AS BASE TEST with
WIRELESS CONNECTION OFF
NO EXTERNAL USB MOUSE CONNECTED (states on label Power Consumption: 250mw, 50mA)

Power consumption - 1 min intervals :
7797 mw
7819 mw
7797 mw
7894 mw
7793 mw
7776 mw
7797 mw
AVERAGE : 7810 mw

8. SAME AS BASE TEST with
SOUND TURNED ON & SET TO FULL VOLUME
NO EXTERNAL USB MOUSE CONNECTED (states on label Power Consumption: 250mw, 50mA)

Power consumption - 1 min intervals :
9007 mw
8802 mw
9590 mw
8845 mw
9288 mw
9234 mw
8910 mw
AVERAGE : 9097 mw

9. SAME AS BASE TEST with
BACKLIGHT TURNED OFF (hold function key 'fn' & press 'F6' simultaneously)
NO EXTERNAL USB MOUSE CONNECTED (states on label Power Consumption: 250mw, 50mA)

Power consumption - 1 min intervals :
7711 mw
7689 mw
7711 mw
7732 mw
7754 mw
7732 mw
8218 mw
AVERAGE : 7792 mw

10. TEST SAME AS BASE TEST with
LID CLOSED
Power consumption :
Single Test Results : 7938 mw

 

With wifi transfering at top speed through lan, screen at full brightness, hdd stressed, volume to full, usb power all maxed out, all card reader stressed, i'm using about 20000mw. I used mobile meter to check out my current power draw.

 

I'm getting around 6900mW discharge rate in Windows XP with everything set to maximize battery life. It easily jumps to 1400+ mW with sound, high CPU usage, lots of WLAN activity etc., That's according to BatteryBar. Not sure how accurate these programs are, though?

 

The biggest delta I see is the wifi driver, neither of the 2 Linux drivers does power saving on it. When I changed over to the windows driver under linux my min. power dropped to 7.1 (from 7.9) or so.

I suspect the next biggest gain would come from video, but don't know how to address this.