Realtek 8187b Wireless VERY VERY slow

Tony Houghton · External Since: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 113

On Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:42:44 +0100
Bruce Stephens <bruce+usenet@cenderis.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> I don't know. The N800 is (IMHO) a bit too wimpy (some websites,
> argos.co.uk springs to mind, are basically unusable because of the
> javascript). Hmm, judging by the wikipedia page perhaps processors
> very much faster aren't available. My hunch is that something that's
> a bit faster (say twice as fast as the N800), and not crippled by what
> is nowadays far too little RAM, would make a nice netbook. But quite
> possibly that's not ARM's market. On the other hand, iPhone and other
> mobile devices use them.

The ARM is so simple and efficient they could probably use quad core
versions in netbooks without too much detriment to cost and battery
life. That might not help much with Flash and Javascript though.

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

Folderol · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 135

On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:52:08 +0100
Bruce Stephens <bruce+usenet@cenderis.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> chris <ithinkiam.RemoveThis@gmail.com> writes:
>
> [...]
>
> > My colleague gets much less than 2hrs and she's got the SSD version,
> > which in theory should be the most frugal.
>
> In theory, but I don't think they are, at present. Especially the
> cheap ones in netbooks.
>
> [...]
>
> > My ideal would be something north of 3hrs, but still be in the
> > 1-1.5kg bracket. Wishful thinking, I know...
>
> At present it seems wishful thinking. I think in principle it could
> be done. OLPC XO-1 gets ~3 hours, I think, and I'm guessing batteries
> are a little better now. And that was using an x86 chip (albeit a
> lowish powered one). I still think ARM's the way to go---just a
> faster one than's used in mobile phones (and things like N800).

As a matter of curiosity I've just completed a 'real life' test of
battery life on my Eee PC 901.

I run the ubunto 8.10 based easy peasy, but instead of the gnome
desktop, I run ROX desktop with openbox window manager.

First I gave the battery an all day charge, then left it overnight to
'settle'. This morning I plugged in an optical mouse and switched on.
Gkrellm reported 96% charge, which seems reasonable. I had the screen
set to a moderate brightness - clearly visible indoors. I also had
wireless inactive (but can't seem to actually switch it off).

I then ran the machine as a music player - ogg vobis of course Smile

while
doing just enough occasional mouse work to stop the screen going into
standby. After an hour or so I decided to plug in the wired network and
check for software updates, installing a handful. I also ran firefox
for a few minutes. Through the entire session gkrellm was reporting a
fairly steady 45% CPU usage.

Gkrellm showed an uptime of 4 hours as the battery dropped to about 2%.
When gkrellm showed the battery level dropping to 0% the computer ran
for a about another minute before unceremoniously shutting down.

--
Will J G

Martin Gregorie · External Since: Jan 23, 2009 Posts: 14

On Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:38:26 +0100, chris wrote:

> A round-up of all them reviewed at the same time looking at the same
> aspects with the same tests would be nice.

Agreed, but there's still enough meat to recognize the front runners for
one's own requirements and have a closer look at those.

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

anahata · External Since: Apr 02, 2009 Posts: 1

On Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:09:38 +0100, Tony Houghton wrote:

> The ARM is so simple and efficient they could probably use quad core
> versions in netbooks without too much detriment to cost and battery
> life.

I'm working with an ARM cortex CPU (not Linux...) and it draws 20mA at
3.3V, clocked at 72MHz. You'd need about 16 of them to draw a Watt...

> That might not help much with Flash and Javascript though.

I wonder how well that software would scale to 16 cores.

--
Anahata
anahata.RemoveThis@treewind.co.uk ==//== 01638 720444
http://www.treewind.co.uk ==//== http://www.myspace.com/maryanahata

Andy Leighton · External Since: Mar 29, 2004 Posts: 28

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:48:22 -0500, anahata <anahata DeleteThis @treewind.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:09:38 +0100, Tony Houghton wrote:
>
>> The ARM is so simple and efficient they could probably use quad core
>> versions in netbooks without too much detriment to cost and battery
>> life.
>
> I'm working with an ARM cortex CPU (not Linux...) and it draws 20mA at
> 3.3V, clocked at 72MHz. You'd need about 16 of them to draw a Watt...

That is quite a slow one then (unles you dropped a 0 on the clockspeed).
Of course you still need all the graphics and support chips like the
Atom does (or go for a single chip solution with an ARM core). However
I do think that a massive (well 16-32) number of CPU cores could prove
interesting in the long run.

>> That might not help much with Flash and Javascript though.

No - but other factors about the ARM could if Adobe/Mozilla took
advantage of them. Action/Javascript could possibly be JITTed to
ThumbEE. Java is already taken care of by ARM's Jazelle technology
but I don't know the exact performance boost that gives. The real
problem is so few software packages can really take advantage of
lots of cores. A lot of scripting languages have problems in that
area even before you start looking at how apps are written.

--
Andy Leighton => andyl DeleteThis @azaal.plus.com
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_

chris · External Since: Feb 08, 2005 Posts: 28

Folderol wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:52:08 +0100
> Bruce Stephens <bruce+usenet@cenderis.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> chris <ithinkiam.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> My colleague gets much less than 2hrs and she's got the SSD version,
>>> which in theory should be the most frugal.
>> In theory, but I don't think they are, at present. Especially the
>> cheap ones in netbooks.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> My ideal would be something north of 3hrs, but still be in the
>>> 1-1.5kg bracket. Wishful thinking, I know...
>> At present it seems wishful thinking. I think in principle it could
>> be done. OLPC XO-1 gets ~3 hours, I think, and I'm guessing batteries
>> are a little better now. And that was using an x86 chip (albeit a
>> lowish powered one). I still think ARM's the way to go---just a
>> faster one than's used in mobile phones (and things like N800).
>
> As a matter of curiosity I've just completed a 'real life' test of
> battery life on my Eee PC 901.
>
> I run the ubunto 8.10 based easy peasy, but instead of the gnome
> desktop, I run ROX desktop with openbox window manager.
>
> First I gave the battery an all day charge, then left it overnight to
> 'settle'. This morning I plugged in an optical mouse and switched on.
> Gkrellm reported 96% charge, which seems reasonable. I had the screen
> set to a moderate brightness - clearly visible indoors. I also had
> wireless inactive (but can't seem to actually switch it off).
>
> I then ran the machine as a music player - ogg vobis of course Smile

while
> doing just enough occasional mouse work to stop the screen going into
> standby. After an hour or so I decided to plug in the wired network and
> check for software updates, installing a handful. I also ran firefox
> for a few minutes. Through the entire session gkrellm was reporting a
> fairly steady 45% CPU usage.
>
> Gkrellm showed an uptime of 4 hours as the battery dropped to about 2%.
> When gkrellm showed the battery level dropping to 0% the computer ran
> for a about another minute before unceremoniously shutting down.

That's very useful info, thanks!

Andy Leighton · External Since: Mar 29, 2004 Posts: 28

On Thu, 2 Apr 2009 15:09:15 +0100, Tony Houghton <h DeleteThis @realh.co.uk> wrote:
> Acorn were working on a 5 CPU expansion for the Risc PC, but then
> StrongARM came along with about 5x the performance of the ARM 7s they'd
> been working with so far. The Risc PC's bus bottleneck would most
> probably have made more than one StrongARM pointless so they abandoned
> the idea.

I think you can get 4-core ARM CPUs in the latest ARM Cortex-A9 range
but I don't think that they are available yet. I am sure that ARM are
hoping to get them in as the processor for the next round of Linux based
netbooks.

--
Andy Leighton => andyl DeleteThis @azaal.plus.com
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_

Tony Houghton · External Since: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 113

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:13:46 -0500
Andy Leighton <andyl.TakeThisOut@azaal.plus.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:48:22 -0500, anahata <anahata.TakeThisOut@treewind.co.uk> wrote:
> > On Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:09:38 +0100, Tony Houghton wrote:
> >
> >> The ARM is so simple and efficient they could probably use quad core
> >> versions in netbooks without too much detriment to cost and battery
> >> life.
> >
> > I'm working with an ARM cortex CPU (not Linux...) and it draws 20mA at
> > 3.3V, clocked at 72MHz. You'd need about 16 of them to draw a Watt...
>
> That is quite a slow one then (unles you dropped a 0 on the clockspeed).

That's what I was thinking. I still have a tiny bit of lingering
interest in ARM because of my Acorn roots, and I've been vaguely aware
that they've reached at least several hundred MHz.

> Of course you still need all the graphics and support chips like the
> Atom does (or go for a single chip solution with an ARM core). However
> I do think that a massive (well 16-32) number of CPU cores could prove
> interesting in the long run.

Acorn were working on a 5 CPU expansion for the Risc PC, but then
StrongARM came along with about 5x the performance of the ARM 7s they'd
been working with so far. The Risc PC's bus bottleneck would most
probably have made more than one StrongARM pointless so they abandoned
the idea.

> >> That might not help much with Flash and Javascript though.
>
> No - but other factors about the ARM could if Adobe/Mozilla took
> advantage of them. Action/Javascript could possibly be JITTed to
> ThumbEE. Java is already taken care of by ARM's Jazelle technology
> but I don't know the exact performance boost that gives. The real
> problem is so few software packages can really take advantage of
> lots of cores. A lot of scripting languages have problems in that
> area even before you start looking at how apps are written.

Yes, it's inability to multithread that I had in mind. I suppose
inability to run on multiple cores efficiently will eventually become
unthinkable, but I wonder how long that will take.

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

alexd · External Since: Dec 15, 2005 Posts: 52

Frank Peelo wrote:

> One of the things that annoys me about my eee 4G is that it gets hot.
> (Another is that it doesn't fit in my pocket.)

Something the size of an HP Jornada 720 would be great. Definitely
pocketable.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEsNpEaTm@ale.cx)
19:18:43 up 119 days, 20:29, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 0.15, 0.07
Sexy ladies, and nasty boys, all freaky freakin', to the robot noise

Ian Rawlings · External Since: Oct 07, 2006 Posts: 245

On 2009-04-03, alexd <troffasky.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Something the size of an HP Jornada 720 would be great. Definitely
> pocketable.

There's the "Open Pandora" project, but that's been delayed so much it
might never see the light of day, it's about the size of a Nintendo
DS and run ubuntu. Should have about 8 hours or so of battery. They
have more or less final hardware in testing.

--
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!
http://youtube.com/tarcus69
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarcus/sets/

Moog · External Since: Feb 02, 2007 Posts: 181

On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:37:36 +0100
chris <ithinkiam RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:

<snip>
> > I've already done all of these tests and ended up purchasing the
> > Aspire One. For me the Asus and Dell's are nowhere near in both
> > price and keyvboard IMO. The Samsung is a nice unit, but the Â£300
> > price point and the inclusion of XP is a showstopper. Again, IMHO.
>
> You're not really helping. I'd already discounted the Acer because of
> the battery life. Now, you've added it back!
>
> And yes, I really would prefer to avoid the MS tax too.

Heh. Sorry Chris.

And to compound it, I've just bought a relative *bargain* 9 Volt cell
that gives my Aspire One a magnificent 10 hours of battery life. For a
measly Â£50.

Coupled with the 32gb SD Card set as /home, and the Â£10 1gb upgrade in
RAM, my Aspire one is the dogs.

Total outlay was Â£179 for the A110L, Â£50 for the battery, Â£10 for the
RAM and Â£42 for the SD card.

Â£281 in Total.

Less than the Samsung (and other models) but with exceptional battery
life and runs like a dream.

Oops.Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything. Wink

--
This is an Alphabet Grenade. If it goes off, it could spell disaster.

Gordon · External Since: Mar 28, 2009 Posts: 15

Moog wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:37:36 +0100
> chris <ithinkiam.RemoveThis@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>>> I've already done all of these tests and ended up purchasing the
>>> Aspire One. For me the Asus and Dell's are nowhere near in both
>>> price and keyvboard IMO. The Samsung is a nice unit, but the £300
>>> price point and the inclusion of XP is a showstopper. Again, IMHO.
>> You're not really helping. I'd already discounted the Acer because of
>> the battery life. Now, you've added it back!
>>
>> And yes, I really would prefer to avoid the MS tax too.
>
> Heh. Sorry Chris.
>
> And to compound it, I've just bought a relative *bargain* 9 Volt cell
> that gives my Aspire One a magnificent 10 hours of battery life. For a
> measly £50.
>
> Coupled with the 32gb SD Card set as /home, and the £10 1gb upgrade in
> RAM, my Aspire one is the dogs.
>
> Total outlay was £179 for the A110L, £50 for the battery, £10 for the
> RAM and £42 for the SD card.
>
> £281 in Total.
>
> Less than the Samsung (and other models) but with exceptional battery
> life and runs like a dream.
>
> Oops.Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything. Wink

>

Hmmm. I paid £220 in total for my Tosh Netbook - 80GB HDD, 2GB
RAM......battery life about 3 hours - as much as I need.....

--
Registered Linux User no 240308
gordonATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk
to email me remove the obvious!

Moog · External Since: Feb 02, 2007 Posts: 181

On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:55:13 +0100
Gordon <gordonbparker.RemoveThis@yahoo.com> wrote:

<snip>
> Hmmm. I paid Â£220 in total for my Tosh Netbook - 80GB HDD, 2GB
> RAM......battery life about 3 hours - as much as I need.....

Touche. However.....

Can you take your /home partition with you in your wallet?
Wink

--
This is an Alphabet Grenade. If it goes off, it could spell disaster.

Gordon · External Since: Mar 28, 2009 Posts: 15

Moog wrote:
> On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:55:13 +0100
> Gordon <gordonbparker.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>> Hmmm. I paid £220 in total for my Tosh Netbook - 80GB HDD, 2GB
>> RAM......battery life about 3 hours - as much as I need.....
>
> Touche. However.....
>
> Can you take your /home partition with you in your wallet?
> Wink

>

Yes - if I copy it to my 8GB USB stick.. Smile

--
Registered Linux User no 240308
gordonATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk
to email me remove the obvious!

Moog · External Since: Feb 02, 2007 Posts: 181

On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:06:04 +0100
Gordon <gordonbparker.DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Moog wrote:
> > On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:55:13 +0100
> > Gordon <gordonbparker.DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >> Hmmm. I paid Â£220 in total for my Tosh Netbook - 80GB HDD, 2GB
> >> RAM......battery life about 3 hours - as much as I need.....
> >
> > Touche. However.....
> >
> > Can you take your /home partition with you in your wallet?
> > Wink

> >
>
> Yes - if I copy it to my 8GB USB stick.. Smile

I haven't got room for one of those, due to the accumulation of bank
notes. Wink

All joking aside though, Most netbooks have an "Atom". There are
differences in HD and RAM, but these have their own pros and cons.

My decision was solely base on the keyboard. I'm obviously too old
school and dare I say it, fat fingered.

--
This is an Alphabet Grenade. If it goes off, it could spell disaster.

Gordon · External Since: Mar 28, 2009 Posts: 15

Moog wrote:
> On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:06:04 +0100
> Gordon <gordonbparker RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Moog wrote:
>>> On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:55:13 +0100
>>> Gordon <gordonbparker RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>> Hmmm. I paid £220 in total for my Tosh Netbook - 80GB HDD, 2GB
>>>> RAM......battery life about 3 hours - as much as I need.....
>>> Touche. However.....
>>>
>>> Can you take your /home partition with you in your wallet?
>>> Wink

>>>
>> Yes - if I copy it to my 8GB USB stick.. Smile

>
> I haven't got room for one of those, due to the accumulation of bank
> notes. Wink

>
> All joking aside though, Most netbooks have an "Atom". There are
> differences in HD and RAM, but these have their own pros and cons.
>
> My decision was solely base on the keyboard. I'm obviously too old
> school and dare I say it, fat fingered.
>

So am I - unfortunately, I bought an Acer Aspire which has a slightly
larger keyboard than the Tosh - it took me SIX hours not to connect to
my WiFi - and then the wireless light went out and wouldn't come back
on. I have always had Tosh laptops, and had no problems with them, so I
took the Acer back and swapped it for a Tosh which connected to the WiFi
straight out of the box....interestingly I have an Acer PC I bought
through my company which has never had any problems....

--
Registered Linux User no 240308
gordonATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk
to email me remove the obvious!

Folderol · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 135

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:16:23 +0100
chris <ithinkiam.DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:

> Folderol wrote:
> > On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:52:08 +0100
> > Bruce Stephens <bruce+usenet@cenderis.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> chris <ithinkiam.DeleteThis@gmail.com> writes:
> >>
> >> [...]
> >>
> >>> My colleague gets much less than 2hrs and she's got the SSD version,
> >>> which in theory should be the most frugal.
> >> In theory, but I don't think they are, at present. Especially the
> >> cheap ones in netbooks.
> >>
> >> [...]
> >>
> >>> My ideal would be something north of 3hrs, but still be in the
> >>> 1-1.5kg bracket. Wishful thinking, I know...
> >> At present it seems wishful thinking. I think in principle it could
> >> be done. OLPC XO-1 gets ~3 hours, I think, and I'm guessing batteries
> >> are a little better now. And that was using an x86 chip (albeit a
> >> lowish powered one). I still think ARM's the way to go---just a
> >> faster one than's used in mobile phones (and things like N800).
> >
> > As a matter of curiosity I've just completed a 'real life' test of
> > battery life on my Eee PC 901.
> >
> > I run the ubunto 8.10 based easy peasy, but instead of the gnome
> > desktop, I run ROX desktop with openbox window manager.
> >
> > First I gave the battery an all day charge, then left it overnight to
> > 'settle'. This morning I plugged in an optical mouse and switched on.
> > Gkrellm reported 96% charge, which seems reasonable. I had the screen
> > set to a moderate brightness - clearly visible indoors. I also had
> > wireless inactive (but can't seem to actually switch it off).
> >
> > I then ran the machine as a music player - ogg vobis of course Smile

while
> > doing just enough occasional mouse work to stop the screen going into
> > standby. After an hour or so I decided to plug in the wired network and
> > check for software updates, installing a handful. I also ran firefox
> > for a few minutes. Through the entire session gkrellm was reporting a
> > fairly steady 45% CPU usage.
> >
> > Gkrellm showed an uptime of 4 hours as the battery dropped to about 2%.
> > When gkrellm showed the battery level dropping to 0% the computer ran
> > for a about another minute before unceremoniously shutting down.
>
> That's very useful info, thanks!

Glad it's of value Smile

Update:

I figured out how to properly disable wireless, and now under exactly
the same conditions I show only 25% processor usage (don't understand
what wireless is doing there!) However, I only gain an hour of usage,
suggesting that the bulk of the power use is now the screen. As I said,
I was deliberately preventing that from going into standby.

--
Will J G

Moog · External Since: Feb 02, 2007 Posts: 181

On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:22:08 +0100
Gordon <gordonbparker.RemoveThis@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Moog wrote:
> > On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:06:04 +0100
> > Gordon <gordonbparker.RemoveThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Moog wrote:
> >>> On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:55:13 +0100
> >>> Gordon <gordonbparker.RemoveThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> <snip>
> >>>> Hmmm. I paid Â£220 in total for my Tosh Netbook - 80GB HDD, 2GB
> >>>> RAM......battery life about 3 hours - as much as I need.....
> >>> Touche. However.....
> >>>
> >>> Can you take your /home partition with you in your wallet?
> >>> Wink

> >>>
> >> Yes - if I copy it to my 8GB USB stick.. Smile

> >
> > I haven't got room for one of those, due to the accumulation of bank
> > notes. Wink

> >
> > All joking aside though, Most netbooks have an "Atom". There are
> > differences in HD and RAM, but these have their own pros and cons.
> >
> > My decision was solely base on the keyboard. I'm obviously too old
> > school and dare I say it, fat fingered.
> >
>
> So am I - unfortunately, I bought an Acer Aspire which has a slightly
> larger keyboard than the Tosh - it took me SIX hours not to connect to
> my WiFi - and then the wireless light went out and wouldn't come back
> on. I have always had Tosh laptops, and had no problems with them, so
> I took the Acer back and swapped it for a Tosh which connected to the
> WiFi straight out of the box....interestingly I have an Acer PC I
> bought through my company which has never had any problems....

There *was* an issue with the acer_wmi module setting the
rfkillswitch to zero. This has been solved in Ubuntu 9.04 Beta
(apparently). The LED lights spring into life with the simple
installation of the backport modules from the repository.

--
This is an Alphabet Grenade. If it goes off, it could spell disaster.

chris · External Since: Feb 08, 2005 Posts: 28

Folderol wrote:
> On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:16:23 +0100
> chris <ithinkiam.RemoveThis@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Folderol wrote:
>>> On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:52:08 +0100
>>> Bruce Stephens <bruce+usenet@cenderis.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> chris <ithinkiam.RemoveThis@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>>> My colleague gets much less than 2hrs and she's got the SSD version,
>>>>> which in theory should be the most frugal.
>>>> In theory, but I don't think they are, at present. Especially the
>>>> cheap ones in netbooks.
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>>> My ideal would be something north of 3hrs, but still be in the
>>>>> 1-1.5kg bracket. Wishful thinking, I know...
>>>> At present it seems wishful thinking. I think in principle it could
>>>> be done. OLPC XO-1 gets ~3 hours, I think, and I'm guessing batteries
>>>> are a little better now. And that was using an x86 chip (albeit a
>>>> lowish powered one). I still think ARM's the way to go---just a
>>>> faster one than's used in mobile phones (and things like N800).
>>> As a matter of curiosity I've just completed a 'real life' test of
>>> battery life on my Eee PC 901.
>>>
>>> I run the ubunto 8.10 based easy peasy, but instead of the gnome
>>> desktop, I run ROX desktop with openbox window manager.
>>>
>>> First I gave the battery an all day charge, then left it overnight to
>>> 'settle'. This morning I plugged in an optical mouse and switched on.
>>> Gkrellm reported 96% charge, which seems reasonable. I had the screen
>>> set to a moderate brightness - clearly visible indoors. I also had
>>> wireless inactive (but can't seem to actually switch it off).
>>>
>>> I then ran the machine as a music player - ogg vobis of course Smile

while
>>> doing just enough occasional mouse work to stop the screen going into
>>> standby. After an hour or so I decided to plug in the wired network and
>>> check for software updates, installing a handful. I also ran firefox
>>> for a few minutes. Through the entire session gkrellm was reporting a
>>> fairly steady 45% CPU usage.
>>>
>>> Gkrellm showed an uptime of 4 hours as the battery dropped to about 2%.
>>> When gkrellm showed the battery level dropping to 0% the computer ran
>>> for a about another minute before unceremoniously shutting down.
>> That's very useful info, thanks!
>
> Glad it's of value Smile

>
> Update:
>
> I figured out how to properly disable wireless, and now under exactly
> the same conditions I show only 25% processor usage (don't understand
> what wireless is doing there!) However, I only gain an hour of usage,
> suggesting that the bulk of the power use is now the screen. As I said,
> I was deliberately preventing that from going into standby.

Anyway, five hours is good figure Smile

Yes the screen is a huge power draw. On my Mac laptop dropping the
brighten even just a couple of notches makes a huge difference in
battery life.

Martin Gregorie · External Since: Jan 23, 2009 Posts: 14

On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:01:37 +0100, chris wrote:

>
> Yes the screen is a huge power draw. On my Mac laptop dropping the
> brighten even just a couple of notches makes a huge difference in
> battery life.
>
Here is an indicative number. I have a Fujitsu-Siemans 15" LCD screen on
a desktop. This draws 12 watts at its usual comfortable brightness. That
doesn't include the power used by its power brick. I can't imagine that a
laptop screen would use less power since most of the power is used by the
backlight.

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |