Re: T430 power draw unexpectedly high

[Raymond, David]

I don't know whether this is pertinent, but I have a Lenovo X1 Carbon
(gen 4 I think) which ran the fan at full speed under Linux.  A bios
update solved this problem.  I have converted to OpenBSD (6.6 stable)
and the problem has not reappeared. It might be worth checking with
Lenovo to see if a similar problem/solution exists for your machine.
Bios updates are easy to install on Thinkpads.

Dave Raymond

On 11/23/19, Jonathan Thornburg  wrote:
> In ,
> Dave Trudgian  writes
> [[6.6 or a recent snapshot, Thinkpad T430]]
>> Under OpenBSD with the system sitting idle at a GUI, WiFi active, 50%
>> brightness I see ~15W power draw from the battery. This is with `apmd
>> -A` and the output of `apm` showing that it is throttled to 1200MHz.
>> The CPU fan is running at a constant low speed.
>
> On a Thinkpad T530 (= similar hardware except for 14" --> 15.4" screen)
> running 6.5-stable (amd64), also with WiFi active and the system sitting
> idle at a GUI, I see a power draw of ~20W/10W with the screen at max/min
> brightness, so overall very similar to what Dave Trudgian sees.  I've
> never tried a non-OpenBSD OS on this hardware.
>
> --
> -- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -color to reply]"
> 
>"He wakes me up every morning meowing to death because he wants to go
> out, and then when I open the door he stays put, undecided, and then
> glares at me when I put him out"
>   -- Nathalie Loiseau (French minister for European Affairs,
>explaining why she named her cat "Brexit")
>
>


-- 
David J. Raymond
david.raym...@nmt.edu
http://physics.nmt.edu/~raymond

Re: T430 power draw unexpectedly high

[Jonathan Thornburg]

In ,
Dave Trudgian  writes
[[6.6 or a recent snapshot, Thinkpad T430]]
> Under OpenBSD with the system sitting idle at a GUI, WiFi active, 50%
> brightness I see ~15W power draw from the battery. This is with `apmd
> -A` and the output of `apm` showing that it is throttled to 1200MHz.
> The CPU fan is running at a constant low speed.

On a Thinkpad T530 (= similar hardware except for 14" --> 15.4" screen)
running 6.5-stable (amd64), also with WiFi active and the system sitting
idle at a GUI, I see a power draw of ~20W/10W with the screen at max/min
brightness, so overall very similar to what Dave Trudgian sees.  I've
never tried a non-OpenBSD OS on this hardware.

-- 
-- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -color to reply]" 
   "He wakes me up every morning meowing to death because he wants to go
out, and then when I open the door he stays put, undecided, and then
glares at me when I put him out"
  -- Nathalie Loiseau (French minister for European Affairs,
   explaining why she named her cat "Brexit")

T430 power draw unexpectedly high

[Dave Trudgian]

Hello,

I've been using OpenBSD 6.6, and now latest snapshot, for a couple of
weeks on a Thinkpad T430. Performance and stability is fine and am very
much enjoying using this setup, but the battery life is unexpectedly
bad, vs what I'd expect having read around OpenBSD supporting c-states
and throttling.

Under OpenBSD with the system sitting idle at a GUI, WiFi active, 50%
brightness I see ~15W power draw from the battery. This is with `apmd
-A` and the output of `apm` showing that it is throttled to 1200MHz.
The CPU fan is running at a constant low speed.

Under Linux, I see an idle power draw sitting in the GUI, WiFi active,
50% brightness of ~8W. The CPU fan is mostly idle.

>From reading around I was expecting more in the range of 70-80% of the
Linux battery life, rather than ~50%. I understand several people may
be using T430 machines with OpenBSD. Would be grateful for any info
r.e. is this power draw typical, or any hints for other things I can
look into?

Many thanks,

Dave Trudgian