Battery life, Thinkpad x230, and Arch Linux
22 Apr 2015
Introduction
Ever since buying a Thinkpad x230 some years ago, I have neglected tweaking and
monitoring its power usage. Mostly thanks to having it plugged in while in use.
The laptop itself has gone through a couple of operating systems including;
OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Ubuntu and finally, Arch Linux. To begin the journey of power
saving via Arch Linux, here is some info regarding the current battery.
Battery 0: Discharging, 97%, 03:33:17 remaining
Battery 0: design capacity 4791 mAh, last full capacity 3081 mAh = 64%
Adapter 0: off-line
Thermal 0: ok, 40.0 degrees C
Thermal 0: trip point 0 switches to mode critical at temperature 103.0 degrees C
Cooling 0: x86_pkg_temp no state information available
Cooling 1: intel_powerclamp no state information available
Cooling 2: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 3: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 4: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 5: Processor 0 of 10
Turning On Audio Power Saving:
$ sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/audio_powersave.conf
options snd_hda_intel power_save=1
Turning Off Bluetooth via udev rules:
$ sudo vim /etc/udev/rules.d/50-bluetooth.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="rfkill", ATTR{type}=="bluetooth", ATTR{state}="0"
Disabling The NMI watchdog:
$ sudo vim /etc/sysctl.d/disable_watchdog.conf
kernel.nmi_watchdog = 0
Enable the Laptop Mode Parameter in the kernel:
$ sudo vim /etc/sysctl.d/laptop.conf
vm.laptop_mode = 5
Disable Wake-on-LAN:
# Show the interfaces
$ ip link show
$ sudo vim /etc/udev/rules.d/70-wifi-powersave.rules
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", KERNEL=="**wlp3s0**", RUN+="/usr/bin/iw dev %k set power_save on"
$ sudo vim /etc/udev/rules.d/70-disable_wol.rules
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", KERNEL=="**enp0s25**", RUN+="/usr/bin/ethtool -s %k wol d"
Install and enable laptop-mode-tools:
$ curl -O https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/la/laptop-mode-tools/laptop-mode-tools.tar.gz
$ tar -zxf laptop-mode-tools.tar.gz
$ cd laptop-mode-tools
$ makepkg -si
$ sudo systemctl enable laptop-mode.service
The final result:
$ acpi -V
Battery 0: Discharging, 98%, 05:14:50 remaining
Battery 0: design capacity 4748 mAh, last full capacity 3053 mAh = 64%
Adapter 0: off-line
Thermal 0: ok, 45.0 degrees C
Thermal 0: trip point 0 switches to mode critical at temperature 103.0 degrees C
Cooling 0: x86_pkg_temp no state information available
Cooling 1: intel_powerclamp no state information available
Cooling 2: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 3: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 4: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 5: Processor 0 of 10
Source: 1.