Ubuntu Netbook Battery Life

[organic]

Just got a new Aspire D250 and put Ubuntu Netbook on it, now I'm looking to increase battery life.

So far I've:

- stopped a few unnecessary startup items

- installed cpufreqd (staggered how much cooler the thing runs now, very handy as I bought it specifically for my next holiday in Thailand)

- used powertop and its very handy suggestions

- installed Opera rather than Firefox, though TBH FF doesn't seem so much of a glutton as it does under Windows, maybe I haven't been using it long enough to build a humungous cache.

Anyone know any more tweaks to get a bit more life out the battery?

[dave_boo]

First thing is to install cpufrequtils if it isn't already. Obviously set it to the lowest state possible if you can live at that speed.

Check to see if you can disable unnecessar items in your bios. Do you need LAN? Or do you need WLAN? Most people use one or the other. Obviously disabling WLAN will give you the best battery life but does kind of defeat the purpose of a netbook now doesn't it? I rarely use my webcam...how often do you?

Obviously lowering the brightness of the display helps a lot. So does using a less graphically intense GUI.

Hdparm could help you 'slow' down your hdd. Don't go to crazy because it could actually end up using more energy because it has to spin for a longer period of time to compensate for the slow data transfer.

[Richard-BKK]

Using the standard 32-bit version also saves battery life, I run 64-bit on my notebook - basically I installed it because I have 4GB memory and wanted to use all memory. So remember 64-bit software uses more electric... Nothing dramatic, but if you need to squeeze every minute out of your battery better stay with the 32-bit version.

[dave_boo]

Using the standard 32-bit version also saves battery life, I run 64-bit on my notebook - basically I installed it because I have 4GB memory and wanted to use all memory. So remember 64-bit software uses more electric... Nothing dramatic, but if you need to squeeze every minute out of your battery better stay with the 32-bit version.

You have any references for that?

Also with most of the development in the kernel going into 64 bit optimisations (and the fact that they can do more per clock cycle allowing them to get back into a lower processor state) I can't see how your claim can be valid.

Having said all that his netbook has an N270 in it....and it doesn't support x86_64.....

[organic]

First thing is to install cpufrequtils if it isn't already. Obviously set it to the lowest state possible if you can live at that speed.

Check to see if you can disable unnecessar items in your bios. Do you need LAN? Or do you need WLAN? Most people use one or the other. Obviously disabling WLAN will give you the best battery life but does kind of defeat the purpose of a netbook now doesn't it? I rarely use my webcam...how often do you?

Obviously lowering the brightness of the display helps a lot. So does using a less graphically intense GUI.

Hdparm could help you 'slow' down your hdd. Don't go to crazy because it could actually end up using more energy because it has to spin for a longer period of time to compensate for the slow data transfer.

Plenty of stuff to look into there thanks. As for the webcam, rarely if ever. Presumably it still drains a bit of current though, so is there a way of disabling it so that I could easily re-enable it should I ever need it?

[Richard-BKK]

Using the standard 32-bit version also saves battery life, I run 64-bit on my notebook - basically I installed it because I have 4GB memory and wanted to use all memory. So remember 64-bit software uses more electric... Nothing dramatic, but if you need to squeeze every minute out of your battery better stay with the 32-bit version.

You have any references for that?

Also with most of the development in the kernel going into 64 bit optimisations (and the fact that they can do more per clock cycle allowing them to get back into a lower processor state) I can't see how your claim can be valid.

Having said all that his netbook has an N270 in it....and it doesn't support x86_64.....

You can read a lot about the 64-bit power-drainage on the internet. Before I had two Acer Aspire 2940 notebooks, one running 32-bits Ubuntu and the second 64-bits Ubuntu, and the later was running faster out of juice then the first. (the two notebooks are identical 4GB ram, 320GB HDD) Maybe the extra power drain is the extra 512mb what comes available in the 64-bit version. I did not made it a big issue as its not that the power drain is hours faster... more like 10 to 15 minutes, even when I switched the battery from the 32-bits notebook the battery on the 64-bit was always the first to run out of battery power. And as we use on both notebooks VM Workstation we also upgraded the second notebook to 64-bits as we could use the extra 512mb to run our virtual machines.

[Spoonman]

The D250 only has 1 ram slot so the whole 32 vs 64 bit thing is a moot point as you cannot install more than 2gb into it.

Organic, which Ubunto did you install, im looking at putting jolicloud on my samsung N220 but am a bit apprehensive to do so at the moment as I Like me windows 7, some additional battery life would be nice though.

Edited August 17, 2010 by Spoonman

[organic]

Ubuntu Netbook (they don't seem to call it Remix any longer), Lucid Lynx. No installation problems. Battery life seemed a little down from the advertised max., but the tweaks have already improved it a bit.

I just want something to keep me occupied for at least part of that long flight.