[TRACKING] Linux battery life tuning

Just to clarify is this with all modules connected? I’m currently idling at 3.6W now by using tlp instead of auto-cpufreq so I guess you can ignore the things that I’ve said about auto-cpufreq before. Will try to experiment on different DEs and other distros maybe going back to void :slight_smile:

Yes but this is after 2-3 minutes of idle.

Hehe I was interested after seeing your post before but when testing drain at different CPU freq it didn’t seem to make a huge difference, I used “cpupower-gui” to experiment.

These are the “on battery” changes I made.

CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_BAT=powersave
CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_BAT=power
CPU_HWP_DYN_BOOST_ON_BAT=0
CPU_HWP_DYN_BOOST_ON_BAT=0
SCHED_POWERSAVE_ON_BAT=1
PLATFORM_PROFILE_ON_BAT=low-power
INTEL_GPU_MIN_FREQ_ON_BAT=100
INTEL_GPU_MAX_FREQ_ON_BAT=650
INTEL_GPU_BOOST_FREQ_ON_BAT=650 (not worth it likely, GPU scales on it’s own very well see “intel_gpu_top”)
PCIE_ASPM_ON_BAT=powersupersave
RUNTIME_PM_ON_BAT=auto

Just curious, what does this do?

Looking at powertop, I just can’t seem to make the display backlight use a lower wattage. It’s always around 3W, this is probably why I am idling at 3.5W.

INTEL_GPU_MAX_FREQ_ON_BAT=650

Limits the iGPU clock to 650 mhz on battery power, the lower bound setting (INTEL_GPU_MIN_FREQ_ON_BAT=100) doesn’t seem to do anything really. IMO this is only helpful if you will be loading the gpu fully but don’t want it to go to max clocks, in regular use I find that it does a fine job of clocking up and down to just what is needed. You can use intel_gpu_top to see and decide.

Be aware that the power estimate listed for each element in powertop is pretty much a random guess. It has no way of directly measuring the consumption of individual components. The only direct measurement powertop has is the reported battery power number listed at the top when the laptop is running on battery.

If you want to know how much power your backlight is using, you’ll need to let the system run with the backlight off while on battery, see what the battery power value reads, then turn on the backlight and see what the new power reading is. The difference is the consumption of the backlight.

Differential power measurements can also be done with a USB-C power meter, though you need to be careful to make sure that the battery is fully charged and has been stable for a few minutes so that you don’t get the charging power mixed in with your readings.

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I just found this. Does changing “Boot performance mode” from “Turbo Performance” to “Max Battery” improve the battery life?

As I understand this is only for CPU behaviour in the BIOS, it would save battery while in the BIOS only.

OK. Thanks for the reply.

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You can even use TLP along with auto-cpufreq AS LONG as you disable TLP’s governor and turbo boost setting (along with any additional CPU-related setting you’ve set yourself in TLP but by default I think these are the only two). Then you can benefit from auto-cpufreq and TLP’s other features (USB auto-suspend, radio devices, etc.).

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This just shows “No data” for Battery for me. Have you installed anything else to make it work?

Starting a thread on Linux battery with 12th gen.

  • I have Ubuntu 22 mate
  • with kernem 5.18
  • Deactivated turboboost in BIOS
    I get constant 2 GHZ on all cores at IDLE :

EDIT: Found out that powertop reports completely different values, that seems correcte.

Anyone here should read through the existing Linux battery life tuning thread first. It should have everything you need for tuning (there’s basically no difference in tuning from 11th vs 12th gen).

I also have a doc that has an extended writeup on CPU and laptop idle power usage, you can start reading here: 2022 Framework Laptop DIY Edition 12th Gen Intel Batch 1 · lhl/linuxlaptops Wiki · GitHub

Basically:

  • tlp and thermald to optimize your power usage behavior
  • powertop, turbostat to get insight on what the laptop and CPU are doing,
  • powerstat to make reliable averaged measurements
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Found the compositor has a lot of effect on the gpu power drawn
Best for me are :
Marco without compositor
Compiz
2nd is Marco builtin : xpresent


The worst is marco picom (the one I was using !)

Does anyone understand how power-profiles-daemon works? I’ve heard that it can govern the cpu and fans based on information that Framework specifies, presumably in firmware. Is this true? If so is this optimal? Also I’m wondering if someone could give me pointers on how to disable all CPU governing that TLP assumes.

From what I’ve gathered I need to change CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_(AC/BAT) to default and SCHED_POWERSAVE_ON_BAT to 0. Everything else seems to have a default of <none> which I assume means TLP doesn’t do anything.

PPD, which IIRC is a kde/plasma only invention, and TLP (a much more “universal” and extensible solution) do not work together at all. Devs of each have not been playing nicely with each other.

Choose one or the other. I went with TLP, and have been plenty happy with my choice.

I thought it was a GNOME invention. I’m running Fedora Silverblue so I have some inertia when it comes to disabling PPD.

Maybe it was powerdevil I was thinking of as a KDE specific deal. I really want my brain back.

Dug up a bug report about it if you feel like reading: 2028701 – tlp actively breaks power-profiles-daemon when installed

TLP lists what it’s in conflict with in their FAQ (and the section above has detailed info on power-profiles-daemon interactions): Installation — TLP 1.6 documentation

You can also add auto-cpufreq, which in their README says " Please note: auto-cpufreq aims to replace TLP in terms of functionality and after you install auto-cpufreq it’s recommended to remove TLP . If both are used for same functionality, i.e: to set CPU frequencies it’ll lead to unwanted results like overheating. Hence, only use both tools in tandem if you know what you’re doing."

Note all of them play relatively nice with thermald, and that’s what should be loading the Framework “firmware” info - specifically, the DPTF adaptive policy tables.

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Awesome, I think that is what I must have thought PPD does because I watched a talk with Framework and Fedora staff saying that there were custom fan curves.