Linux 3.1 Kernel Draws More Power With Another Regression

[anbog]

I wonder if openbenchmarking.org could be extended into a volunteer testing platform (like BOINC, but for testing)?

That would be cool. I have an old Pentium M / Radeon Mobility X1300 laptop that I wouldn't mind dedicating to that! Even if it wasn't completely automatic, like getting a mail with instructions and script(s). Is anything like that in the plans Michael?

[bulletxt]

This is starting to be very serious now.

Michael, thanks for sharing your discoveries in this area.

[Cyborg16]

That would be cool. I have an old Pentium M / Radeon Mobility X1300 laptop that I wouldn't mind dedicating to that! Even if it wasn't completely automatic, like getting a mail with instructions and script(s). Is anything like that in the plans Michael?

There's a problem there: many (most?) people are interested in what happens on newer systems. But if the instructions are as simple as "download this ISO, burn to CD, and run overnight when you're not using the machine," then I for one would be willing to help out.

A dedicated testing installation/live-CD is essential to avoid users' software tweaks having an effect, so automated testing would only be possible with dedicated machines (which I doubt many people would be willing to provide).

[ryszardzonk]

good thing there is linux-phc to help out with the situation

If anyone is interested I curently use below values for AMD E-350 on E35M1-M Pro motherboard

echo "26 28 51" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/phc_vids

over there defaults

echo "20 21 42" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/phc_vids

[saski]

confirmed, i915_enable_rc6=1 reduces power drain about 30%.
unfortunately i915_enable_rc6=1 causes the gpu to hang pretty often and to lock up the system entirely as soon as multiple OpenGL or vaapi apps are running

[lgstoian]

Really another power regresion. The kernel is just sucking in more and more power with each release and noone seems to do anything about it. I got a new netmook that came with Windows 7 and the reason im sticking with the os is battery life. I get a hole extra hour. At this rate I'll have a better power consumption under Haiku Os.

[glasen]

Really another power regresion.

Yes, but if you would read the whole discussion (and the article) you could see that the regression related to a small commit disabling the power-saving feature off the "Sandy Bridge"-graphics. And this step was made to get rid of some nasty bugs and system hangs.

As Michael stated himself, only his system with the "Sandy Bridge"-CPU has a higher power consumption. The older Core i7-system with a Nvidia graphics card has the same power consumption as Linux 3.0.

[lgstoian]

Not like the 3.0 kernel has a good power consumption to begin with.
No matter how you look at it power consumption under linux seems to be getting pretty ignored. A second class citizen.

[89c51]

has anyone of the people nagging here filled any bugs or bisected it????

[lgstoian]

So since this regresions have been discovered no developer noticed them even if they have been higly present in the media.
I would love to solve the bugs myself but I'm an arhitect I have no idea about brograming. This is a problem too comon present in the linux world. Noone cares about users that are jsut users we aren't programers. And these bugs usually afect us the most.