Re: [Mactel-linux-devel] C4 state - Status report

[Sheer El-S. <sh...@gm...>]

Hi Sven,

I asked about the MacBook issue in a previous post somewhere.  I've
also become convinced that the problem is the GPU (there was an
article I mentioned on Phoronix where someone compared the temperature
of the GPU of an ATI card in Linux and windows and found it much
higher in the former).  Regarding the MacBook,  here's a webpage
claiming a 3 hour battery life under linux:

http://desrt.mcmaster.ca/macbook.xhtml
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=3D22960

The second link has a bit of discussion about battery life under Linux
on the MB.  I don't know what the OS X battery life is but I'm
guessing its at least 4 hours (people there say 3-4 hrs).

I agree that looking into this is the right approach.  If the GPU is
the problem there's very little we can do about it but wait for ATI so
we might as well find out if this is the case.  Hopefully somebody
from the list can post some specific MB stats.  It would also be good
to see if its possible to get the MB battery life up to its OS X value
using USB autosuspend and dynticks.

cheers,
Sheer

On 4/24/07, Sven Anders <an...@an...> wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I thought about the power consumption. Maybe we can track the problem dow=
n
> some other way...
>
> 1. Is the output of '/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state' reliable? If it is,
>    we can use it for testing, otherwise we have to test how long the batt=
ery
>    really lasts.
>
> 2. As far as I remember, the MacBook is very similar to the MacBook Pro i=
n
>    the hardware it's using. The main difference is the GPU.
>    How long does the battery of the MacBook under Linux last in compariso=
n
> to
>    MacOS X?
>    If it's a small difference, so our problem is the power consumption of
>    the ATI GPU (assuming the Intel-GPU draws as less power under Linux as=
 it
>    does under MacOSX). On the MacBook we have the advantage, that it's an
>    open-source driver.
>    If the power drain is as bad as on the MacBook Pro (and we checked the
>    Intel-GPU driver, that is's using all power-saving states available),
>    the problem lies somewhere else...
>
> To check these, we need some output of the MacBook's /proc/acpi values or
> somebody who helps us to prove these theory...
>
> Any comments to these thoughts? Any errors in it?
>
>
> Best regards
>  Sven
>
> --
>  Sven Anders <an...@an...>                 () Ascii Ribbon Campaign
>                                                  /\ Support plain text
> e-mail
>  ANDURAS service solutions AG
>  Innstra=DFe 71 - 94036 Passau - Germany
>  Web: www.anduras.de - Tel: +49 (0)851-4 90 50-0 - Fax: +49 (0)851-4 90
> 50-55
>
> Rechtsform: Aktiengesellschaft - Sitz: Passau - Amtsgericht Passau HRB 60=
32
> Mitglieder des Vorstands: Sven Anders, Marcus Junker
> Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Dipl. Kfm. Thomas Tr=E4ger
>