Power management on M11x R3 laptop...

[adramalech707]

Okay so I keep seeing the battery critical popup in gnome shell when I unplug my laptop....however my battery is fine..

[adramalech@tux ~]$ acpi
Battery 0: Discharging, 88%, 02:39:29 remaining

powertop device status tab:

The battery reports a discharge rate of 21.1 W

              Usage     Device name
              4.3%        CPU use
            100.0%        Audio codec hwC0D3: Intel
            100.0%        Audio codec hwC0D0: Realtek (pulseaudio )
             59.9%        Display backlight
             57.1%        Display backlight
              0.0%        USB device: EHCI Host Controller
              0.0%        USB device: xHCI Host Controller
              0.0%        USB device: usb-device-8087-0024
              0.0%        USB device: DW375 Bluetooth Module (Dell Computer Corp)
              0.0%        USB device: M11x-R3 (Alienware Gaming)
              0.0%        USB device: Android (Android)
            705.2 pkts/s  Network interface: wlan0 (iwlwifi)
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
            100.0%        PCI Device: Atheros Communications AR8151 v2.0 Gigabit Ethernet
            100.0%        Radio device: btusb
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1000
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 6
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller
            100.0%        Radio device: iwlwifi
            100.0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
              0.0%        PCI Device: NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller
              0.0 pkts/s  Network interface: em1 (atl1c)
              0.0%        USB device: Laptop_Integrated_Webcam_2M (CN04MYKF72487133N48MA00)
              0.0%        USB device: xHCI Host Controller

I was wondering what I can do to my Alienware M11X R3 to squeeze more batter life out of it... I have an SSD running with all the ssd tweaks in the fstab...but I have laptop_mode = 0 but it is on tmpfs and I tried switching out the number but it doesn't change....

Any help in helping to tweak out more power management on my laptop is great.... I am only getting like 2-3 hours when I should be getting 4-5 hours...

My CPUFreqUtils daemon is set at conservative but I will probably be looking for a Gnome GUI to change the power settings...

[hostace]

1. cpufreq daemon must be set to ondemand.
2. Try set laptop mode with sysctl.conf

vm.dirty_writeback_centisecs = 1500
vm.dirty_expire_centisecs = 15000
vm.laptop_mode = 5
vm.dirty_ratio = 10
kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate = 1000

[adramalech707]

Okay thanks will give that a try...

[hostace]

This some more tweaks:

root@raistlin raistlin]# cat /etc/rc.d/rc.local
#!/bin/bash
hdparm -B 128 /dev/sda
echo 1 > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save
for i in `ls /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/power/level` ; do echo "auto" > $i ; done
for i in `ls /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/link_power_management_policy` ; do echo "min_power" > $i ; done
for i in `ls /sys/bus/pci/devices/*/power/control` ; do echo "auto" > $i ; done
[root@raistlin raistlin]#

[DonnieP]

I got my M11X R3 from 2.5 hours to 5.5 hours battery life simply by turning off the nvidia card with bumblebee and bbswitch. Do hostace's tweaks accomplish the same thing without turning off the nvidia card?

[hostace]

No. My things is increasing approximatelly to 30 minutes uptime from battery additionally to disable Nvidia card. Saving about 3.5 hours with my tweaks is impossible.

---------- Post added at 07:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:29 PM ----------

some thing - before using powertop do

powertop --calibrate

[adramalech707]

Well I have a problem. That is I want to be able to use the dang Nvidia 540M card however I cannot seem to get the proprietary card working so bumblebee and bbswitch is using on the nouveau driver that somewhat stinks I cannot optirun even minecraft because of GLX 1.3 problem. Optirun glxgears works fine though...

I also noticed that I do have alot of stuff running on tmpfs on ram because I have a Crucial M4 128GB SSD. I have alot of the tweaks for SSDs for EXT4 enabled in fstab.

I did run sudo powertop --calibrate and it is going through its stuff right now.

The problem is the cpufreq stuff won't stay saved because I think it is running that file from RAM.

/etc/fstab tmpfs lines..

tmpfs					  none  	swap	sw,defaults,noatime					  0 0
tmpfs				          /var/log      tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=0755       			  0 0
tmpfs					  /var/tmp	tmpfs	defaults,noatime,mode=1777		  		  0 0
tmpfs					  /tmp		tmpfs	defaults,noatime,mode=1777       	  		  0 0
tmpfs					  /dev/shm	tmpfs	defaults,noatime			  		  0 0

So was wondering what I should do to make things more permanent. It is also sucks that when I reboot or shutdown and restart at a later time it won't even save the damn wallpaper settings so I log in it reverts back to the Jules Vern F16 wallpaper and it is like centered I have to every time go in and switch wallpapers and fit it..

**EDIT#1**
Okay so for some odd reason after running sudo powertop --calibrate I lose my Intel 1000 wifi card.

[adramalech@tux ~]$ sudo powertop
[sudo] password for adramalech: 
Loaded 14 prior measurements
Leaving PowerTOP
[adramalech@tux ~]$ sudo powertop --calibrate
Loaded 14 prior measurements
Starting PowerTOP power estimate calibration 
Calibrating idle
Calibrating: disk usage 
Calibrating backlight
.... device /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness 
.... device /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness 
Calibrating idle
Calibrating: CPU usage on 1 threads
Calibrating: CPU usage on 4 threads
Calibrating: CPU wakeup power consumption
Calibrating: CPU wakeup power consumption
Calibrating: CPU wakeup power consumption
Calibrating USB devices
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb1/power/control 
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb2/power/control 
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb3/power/control 
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1/power/control 
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1.3/power/control 
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1.4/power/control 
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1.7/power/control 
Calibrating radio devices
.... device /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill1/soft 
.... device /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill0/soft 
.... device /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill1/soft 
.... device /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill0/soft 
Finishing PowerTOP power estimate calibration 
Parameters after calibration:


Parameter state 
----------------------------------
Value		Name
 0.50		alsa-codec-power (15)
 0.00		backlight (4)
 0.00		backlight-boost-100 (8)
 0.00		backlight-boost-40 (6)
 0.00		backlight-boost-80 (7)
 0.00		backlight-power (5)
100.00		base power (43)
 1.56		cpu-consumption (3)
39.50		cpu-wakeups (2)
 0.00		disk-operations (46)
 0.20		disk-operations-hard (45)
 0.00		em1-link-100 (20)
 0.00		em1-link-1000 (21)
 0.00		em1-link-high (22)
 0.00		em1-packets (23)
 0.00		em1-powerunsave (19)
 0.00		em1-up (18)
 0.56		gpu-operations (44)
 0.00		radio:hci0 (17)
 0.00		radio:phy0 (16)
 0.00		runtime-0000:00:00.0 (30)
 0.00		runtime-0000:00:01.0 (31)
 0.00		runtime-0000:00:02.0 (32)
 0.00		runtime-0000:00:1b.0 (33)
 0.00		runtime-0000:00:1c.0 (34)
 0.00		runtime-0000:00:1c.2 (35)
 0.00		runtime-0000:00:1c.3 (36)
 0.00		runtime-0000:00:1c.5 (37)
 0.00		runtime-0000:00:1d.0 (38)
 0.00		runtime-0000:00:1f.2 (39)
 0.00		runtime-0000:07:00.0 (40)
 0.00		runtime-0000:0d:00.0 (41)
 0.00		runtime-0000:19:00.0 (42)
 0.10		usb-device-0c45-6430 (13)
 0.10		usb-device-187c-0522 (14)
 0.10		usb-device-1d6b-0002 (9)
 0.10		usb-device-1d6b-0003 (10)
 0.10		usb-device-413c-8187 (12)
 0.10		usb-device-8087-0024 (11)
 0.00		wlan0-link-100 (26)
 0.00		wlan0-link-1000 (27)
 0.00		wlan0-link-high (28)
 0.00		wlan0-packets (29)
 0.00		wlan0-powerunsave (25)
 0.00		wlan0-up (24)

Score:    0.0  (  0.0)
Guess:  103.0
Actual:   0.0
----------------------------------
Leaving PowerTOP

**EDIT#2**
here is trying sudo sysctrl vm.laptop_mode = 5

[adramalech@tux rc.d]$ sudo sysctl vm.laptop_mode = 5
vm.laptop_mode = 0
error: Malformed setting "="
/proc/sys/5: No such file or directory

[adramalech@tux rc.d]$ sudo sysctl vm.laptop_mode 5
vm.laptop_mode = 0
/proc/sys/5: No such file or directory

also running cat /etc/rc.d/rc.local returns nothing. As in the file doesn't exist...

[hostace]

try to add options as me to /etc/sysctl.conf and /etc/rc.d/rc.local manually, then reboot.