Laptop power management/battery life

[kenethare]

i have a laptop with xp and mandriva dual boot. on windows i can run power saver mode and my battery will last 7-7.5 hours and i normally run it at a middle ground between battery life and performance and it will last 5-6 hours. -on windows

i unplugged my computer on the linux side and it said 99% 2 hours and 22 minutes remaining. it also said it was on power saver. is their a tool i can download that will make it possible for me to get the kind of power efficiency i get with windows it does not have to be exact but i would like something close

[piojo]

The common tool for this is called laptop-mode. Most likely, when you install this, it will be configured to automatically go into powersaving mode when you unplug the cord. If this does not happen automatically, you can type "laptop_mode auto" in a shell.

The other nice tool is "powertop", available from LessWatts.org - Saving Power on Intel systems with Linux . It tells you how much power you are using and automates simple changes to decrease power consumption. (You must run it from a shell.)

These two tools do not conflict with each other in any way, and can be used at the same time.

[bigtomrodney]

i have a laptop with xp and mandriva dual boot. on windows i can run power saver mode and my battery will last 7-7.5 hours and i normally run it at a middle ground between battery life and performance and it will last 5-6 hours. -on windows

Seriously?! I have a 9 cell battery that runs a 1/1.6GHz C2D for 5 hours and I thought that was great. That's just insane. What kernel version are you using? Run this in a terminal

uname -r

... and post the results. If your kernel version is less than 2.6.21 I would strongly recommend upgrading to make use of the tickless kernel. This makes a huge impact on power saving, to the point that performance in Linux is usually better than Windows.

[kenethare]

Seriously?! I have a 9 cell battery that runs a 1/1.6GHz C2D for 5 hours and I thought that was great. That's just insane.

7 hours is an ibm with 9 cell and power saver not normal running

2.6.22.9-desktop586-lmdv