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Re: Aspire 3410T

 

I think we have a little way to go yet on power consumption: a little utility for Windows, called battstat, shows power consumption for my machine as low as 5.9W when running Windows Vista (at idle, but with all the Acer-installed bloatware present).

I also notice that the fan runs less often under Windows.

Regarding Matthew's figures below, I wonder how much difference the SSD makes? the power specs for the Toshiba HD installed in my machine are:
*Power consumption*
Start (Maximum) 	4.5 W
Seek (Average) 	2.2 W
Read (Average) 	1.9 W
Write (Average) 	1.9 W
Low-power idle (Average) 	0.6 W
Sleep (Average) 	0.13 W
Stand-by (Average) 	0.18 W




Matthew Lai wrote:
link_power_management_policy min_power doesn't work for 3810t's either. The northbridge is probably too new to be supported yet.

This is what I get with my SSD 3810t at almost idle.

Cn                Avg residency       P-states (frequencies)
C0 (cpu running)        ( 2.0%)         1400 Mhz     2.4%
polling           0.0ms ( 0.0%)         1200 Mhz    97.6%
C1 mwait          0.0ms ( 0.0%)
C2 mwait          0.1ms ( 0.0%)
C6 mwait          8.3ms (98.0%)

Wakeups-from-idle per second : 120.2    interval: 10.0s
Power usage (ACPI estimate): 7.4W (9.2 hours)

Top causes for wakeups:
 41.2% ( 60.1)       <interrupt> : i915
 20.5% ( 29.9)       <interrupt> : iwlagn
9.4% ( 13.7) <kernel core> : hrtimer_start_range_ns (tick_sched_timer)
  5.5% (  8.0)        notify-osd : usb_hcd_poll_rh_status (rh_timer_func)
  4.2% (  6.1)       <interrupt> : ehci_hcd:usb2, uhci_hcd:usb5
  4.0% (  5.8)     <kernel core> : hrtimer_start (tick_sched_timer)

Power consumption fluctuates between 7 and 9.

There could be a difference between C6 and C3.

Matthew


Darrell Kavanagh wrote:
I've made the following changes related to power management:

iwconfig wlan0 power on
and the changes suggested by powertop (except the link_power_management_policy min_power, which doesn't work, I'm investigating this).

This brought power consumption as reported by powertop down slightly to about 10.5 - 11 watts, and powertop showed thousands of wakeups per second and the CPU state was always in "C1 mwait", never at "C3 mwait" - both bad things according to what I read.

I upgraded the bios to 1.10, and this immediately dropped the number of wakeups per second to 20 or 30 when idle, and now cpu state is almost always "C3 mwait". This has also dropped power consumption to 9.5 to 10 watts. I'm going to experiment with more power management options.

I wonder if the fixed frequency of the Celeron 723, and its higher power consumption compared to the Core ULV processors might make this lower power computer consume more power!

Darrell


Darrell Kavanagh wrote:
It seems that in the UK (and Europe?) Acer offer the 3410, the 3810TZ is sold in the US, right? They do look very similar. The 3410 is not advertised as part of the Timeline range on Acer's UK website, but is by at least some retailers, and is supplied in a Timeline box. On other Acer models here in the UK, the "Z" suffix denotes a lower spec version. Confusion marketing at its worst, IMO. Even when considering the "full spec" 3810, there are models with or without the extra graphics card and bluetooth, and the retailers are very hazy about this, and rarely quote full specs. Buyer beware.

I will try the power management suggestions and report back.

Thanks, all

Darrell

elijah wrote:
Matthew Lai wrote:

The power consumption is quite high, compared to 3810T's (7W-8W with wireless active, and medium brightness).

1 user reported the same issue with a 3410T, with an Atheros wifi card, so the wireless card is probably not the culprit.

I think the CPU on the 3410T uses more power than 3810T, and that the
3810TZ is basically the 3410T but with a 3810 label on it.

It is frustratingly difficult to get any real model specs from acer.

This is what I have figured out:

3410T and 3810TZ have Atheros wifi. For me, this has proven very
unreliable. It cuts out frequently and I must reboot.

3810TZ has Intel Pentium SU2700 [1], it uses max 10W [2]

3410T has Intel Celeron Mobile 723, it uses max 10W [3]

3810T has Core 2 Solo SU3500 [4], it uses max 5.5W [5].

According to the acer website, the timeline models have Core 2 Solo or
Duo. [6]. That is a lie.

Darrell Kavanagh wrote:

Power consumption out of the box runs at around 11 or 12 Watts,

Yeah, that is what I get for the 3810TZ. It must be the CPU that makes
the difference.

-elijah

[1]
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/acer-aspire-timeline-3810tz/4507-3121_7-33676738.html

[2] http://ark.intel.com/product.aspx?id=42004

[3] http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=36685

[4]
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/acer-aspire-timeline-3810t/4507-3121_7-33691151.html

[5] http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=37133

[6] http://www.acer.com/timeline/spec/spec.html

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