Hi guys, I recently tried to use Elementary OS on my ThinkPad T420. Hardware worked just fine out of the box, wifi, sound, graphics, etc. However, battery life on Elementary has been very, very bad! It lasts about an hour tops. I have installed and enabled TLP but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Same laptop on Solus, Ubuntu or Mint lasts around 3 hours and on Windows around 4. Following PowerTOP report that ran for a couple of minutes with the laptop idle: Code (Text): PowerTOP 2.8 Overview Idle stats Frequency stats Device stats Tunables The battery reports a discharge rate of 13.0 W The estimated remaining time is 1 hours, 4 minutes Summary: 777.5 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 24.0% CPU use Usage Events/s Category Description 1981 rpm Device Laptop fan 81.5 ms/s 157.9 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=renderer --field-trial-handle=14154079299553752411,6608151803463361335,131072 --se 5.6 ms/s 113.5 Timer hrtimer_wakeup 22.2 ms/s 96.4 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome 3.4 ms/s 75.2 Timer tick_sched_timer 17.4 ms/s 55.5 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=renderer --field-trial-handle=14154079299553752411,6608151803463361335,131072 --se 11.6 ms/s 53.6 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=gpu-process --field-trial-handle=14154079299553752411,6608151803463361335,131072 - 7.2 ms/s 48.3 Process gala 2.7 ms/s 41.4 Interrupt PS/2 Touchpad / Keyboard / Mouse 46.1 ms/s 5.4 kWork intel_atomic_commit_work 220.2 µs/s 21.1 Interrupt [28] iwlwifi 7.1 ms/s 16.0 Process /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg -core :0 -seat seat0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch 196.8 µs/s 14.0 Process [rcu_sched] 449.8 µs/s 11.5 Process [irq/28-iwlwifi] 1.3 ms/s 11.6 Interrupt [25] i915 2.4 ms/s 10.9 Interrupt [7] sched(softirq) 13.4 ms/s 0.6 kWork i915_gem_idle_work_handler 237.8 µs/s 5.8 kWork ieee80211_iface_work 99.8 µs/s 5.8 Process [i915/signal:0] 1.3 ms/s 4.9 Interrupt [4] block(softirq) 32.9 µs/s 5.0 kWork console_callback 354.5 µs/s 3.2 Process /usr/sbin/acpid 562.6 µs/s 3.0 Process wingpanel 4.7 ms/s 1.1 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=renderer --field-trial-handle=14154079299553752411,6608151803463361335,131072 --se 86.5 µs/s 2.6 kWork iwl_bg_run_time_calib_work 282.9 µs/s 1.3 Process plank 246.7 µs/s 1.1 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=renderer --field-trial-handle=14154079299553752411,6608151803463361335,131072 --se 16.4 µs/s 1.1 kWork intel_atomic_helper_free_state_ 1.7 ms/s 0.30 kWork disk_events_workfn 298.2 µs/s 0.6 Process pantheon-terminal 15.4 µs/s 0.7 kWork pci_pme_list_scan 5.5 µs/s 0.7 Timer sched_rt_period_timer 223.9 µs/s 0.6 Process /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/bamf/bamfdaemon <ESC> Exit | <TAB> / <Shift + TAB> Navigate | Any thoughts? Thanks, Xamineh
Have you tried PowerTOP ? This will show you which processes / devices are using the most CPU. Once PowerTOP has been started it will take measurements for a while, then it will start showing all your device / processes consumption in terms of wattage. Then you can work out what is draining your battery so fast. To install it search in AppCentre or run; Code (Text): sudo apt install powertop PowerTOP is terminal based and will require root privs, so once downloaded to start it run the below; Code (Text): sudo powertop
Hi, Thanks for the tip. I let PowerTop running for a while, following the results: Code (Text): PowerTOP 2.8 Overview Idle stats Frequency stats Device stats Tunables The battery reports a discharge rate of 13.0 W The estimated remaining time is 1 hours, 4 minutes Summary: 777.5 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 24.0% CPU use Usage Events/s Category Description 1981 rpm Device Laptop fan 81.5 ms/s 157.9 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=renderer --field-trial-handle=14154079299553752411,6608151803463361335,131072 --se 5.6 ms/s 113.5 Timer hrtimer_wakeup 22.2 ms/s 96.4 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome 3.4 ms/s 75.2 Timer tick_sched_timer 17.4 ms/s 55.5 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=renderer --field-trial-handle=14154079299553752411,6608151803463361335,131072 --se 11.6 ms/s 53.6 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=gpu-process --field-trial-handle=14154079299553752411,6608151803463361335,131072 - 7.2 ms/s 48.3 Process gala 2.7 ms/s 41.4 Interrupt PS/2 Touchpad / Keyboard / Mouse 46.1 ms/s 5.4 kWork intel_atomic_commit_work 220.2 µs/s 21.1 Interrupt [28] iwlwifi 7.1 ms/s 16.0 Process /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg -core :0 -seat seat0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch 196.8 µs/s 14.0 Process [rcu_sched] 449.8 µs/s 11.5 Process [irq/28-iwlwifi] 1.3 ms/s 11.6 Interrupt [25] i915 2.4 ms/s 10.9 Interrupt [7] sched(softirq) 13.4 ms/s 0.6 kWork i915_gem_idle_work_handler 237.8 µs/s 5.8 kWork ieee80211_iface_work 99.8 µs/s 5.8 Process [i915/signal:0] 1.3 ms/s 4.9 Interrupt [4] block(softirq) 32.9 µs/s 5.0 kWork console_callback 354.5 µs/s 3.2 Process /usr/sbin/acpid 562.6 µs/s 3.0 Process wingpanel 4.7 ms/s 1.1 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=renderer --field-trial-handle=14154079299553752411,6608151803463361335,131072 --se 86.5 µs/s 2.6 kWork iwl_bg_run_time_calib_work 282.9 µs/s 1.3 Process plank 246.7 µs/s 1.1 Process /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=renderer --field-trial-handle=14154079299553752411,6608151803463361335,131072 --se 16.4 µs/s 1.1 kWork intel_atomic_helper_free_state_ 1.7 ms/s 0.30 kWork disk_events_workfn 298.2 µs/s 0.6 Process pantheon-terminal 15.4 µs/s 0.7 kWork pci_pme_list_scan 5.5 µs/s 0.7 Timer sched_rt_period_timer 223.9 µs/s 0.6 Process /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/bamf/bamfdaemon <ESC> Exit | <TAB> / <Shift + TAB> Navigate | I took around 10 minutes to install it, let it run and post this. I lost around 15% of battery for that. FYI, my T420 specs are: i5 2520M, 8GB RAM DDR3, intel 3000 graphics
Well Chrome is a known CPU hog and can't possibly be used if you want the battery to last long. Do you notice your fan going close to max a lot when in Chrome also? I would try Chromium or even Firefox and that see how longer battery you get then.
I tried Firefox and the result is the same, unfortunately. Regarding the fan, the laptop is actually running pretty cold and low fan speed, can't barely hear it.
