Save power with Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) on a ThinkPad T400

Hi

// have to read wiki syntax to format correctly//

Basic information

I have Thinkpad T400 WC8......

9 cell battery now 60% last 4.37 h

Idle consumption after these tips: 11-13 watts, before the tips I used 30-35 watts

I use the ATI Card with the fglrx drivers, unfortunately they have no option to save power.

I use powernowd, Gudiance Power manager and KDE4.2 powerdevil.

4 Gig RAM 2.26 GHz 250GB/5400

Hibernate and suspend work (sometimes, crap fglrx driver)

Let's start:

Stop daemons you don't need with rcconf

Set wlan and bluetooth off (hardware switch)

Deactivate the touchpad.

My Bios Settings:

Bluetooth off

Modem off

Wake on lan off

Flash over lan off

Serial port off

Always USB off

CdromSpeed silent

Virtualisation off

Dockingstation off

Script to save power

This script reduce the power consumption to 13-16 watts

Save this script as /etc/rc.local and do chmod +x on it

Then modify /etc/kde4/kdm/Xsetup

and add:

exec /etc/rc.local

before exit 0

The script:

think_powersave

Modify the xorg

Modify like this:

Section "Device"
       Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
       Driver      "fglrx"
......
       Option      "DynamicClocks" "true"
       Option      "PowerState" "1"
       BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

and

Section "Monitor"
       Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-1"
       Option      "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
       Option      "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
       Option      "DPMS" "true"                              
EndSection

Use powernowd

install powernowd

Then modify /etc/default/powernowd

with these parameters(add after -q with a space after q):

-m 2 -l 20 -u 70 -s 300000

Powerdevil settings

Powersave Profile Settings:

general: Disable Composite

Dim after 1 min

Idle for +20 min shutdown

Lid: lock screen

any Button: Show logout dialog

screen:

Screen Brightness 75 %

enable display power management

standby 3 min suspend 6 min power off 8min

cpu:

scaling: userspace scheme: powersave

Guidance PowerManager

Lock screen after resume

Battery Powered:

Brightness 75%

drops below 10 min --> shutdown idle more than XXX do nothing cpu freq: dynamic (changed from powernowd then) Lid: lock screen

Blacklist

echo "blacklist pcmcia" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

echo "blacklist yenta_socket" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Well good luck and have fun I think if you use the Intel card you can additionally save 3-5 watts