Hi folks, just been noticing all the info on battery life... and lack of it... on these forums for the 901 models under eeebuntu 3.0. For those of you not familiar with this model, the 901 features around 8 hours of battery life in Windows XP, yet a measly 5 hours on average under Linux. Why the heck such a difference?

Well, if you believe that Windows isn't superior to Linux (or far from it), the question becomes how to extend your battery life. This thread is for people to post who have suggestions, or things they've tried that haven't worked. Currently I'm able to get around 7 hours out of my 901... below is my configuration, and details according to powertop and cairo-dock:

eeepc 901 running eeebuntu 3.0, ext 4, 2Gb ram upgrade, bios version 2001.
Power drain: 6.7 Watts = 7.6 hours of battery (powertop stats)
Battery Life = 7 hours 31 minutes (Cairo Dock)
Configuration: backlight 26.65%, wifi off, bluetooth off (disabled in bios), camera off, battery 96.1% charged.

The backlight is a guess, the percentage simply divided by the number of 'steps' it took to get to that... four above the lowest. Anyway, seems brighter than that, but there you go. Anyone know how to measure it accurately? The other things I did was enable the fsb scaling, and add these lines to /etc/fstab, putting these files into ram space:
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0

There was one for /var, but was having troubles with apt-get, so I removed it.

So what's your suggestions? Lets see how much juice we can get form our battery life!

~dinky

Hi, there are other post with this experience.

with eb2 I can get 6-7hours but with eb3 i can't.

I know that a dev will work with this problem when he will return from his vacation. Be patient.

EDIT:

I reread you and I see that you get up 7h with eb3.

This 2 lines works?, with wifi ON you get the same or a bit less?

Regards.

I'm working on it, but I need data for all models before I can release. I have complete data for the 1000HE and 1000HD so far. I have partial data for some of the 900s and 700s. There is a thread in the ACPI forums with more information.

Not sure why you wouldn't be getting 6-7 or more hours. What are you getting with eb3, and are you using the powersaver mode?

If you still have Windows installed, you could help greatly by capturing a copy of the diagnostics screen using setfsb for each of the SHE modes.

Basically, run setfsb set it to your PLL (for the 900 series I believe it is ICS9LPR427AGLF) then select the diagnostics screen.

Set your Eee in the slowest mode, then in setfsb click "get fsb" or whatever the get data button is.

When you see a bunch of hex codes, click the capture button.

Set the next mode in SHE, then getfsb, then capture.

Email the screenshots to support@fewt.com.

I can use that data to code the linux ACPI tools to work exactly like XP. I've already done this for several of the 1000 models.

Sorry Fewt, I suffer from a mild allergy to Windows in all it's forms, and make a point of not installing it on any hardware I own. This 901 was the linux version, and came with Xandros by default. I've set up XP in virtualbox (don't ask me why, I think I just like the concept of Windows running INSIDE Linux), but hardly ever use it. Anyway, more than happy to help if there are other ways I can be of service. Let me know. Great work by the way, I'm really impressed so far.

@Bloodsucker.... yeah, with wifi on it is less... more like 6 hours. Otherwise, I'm finding the power saving settings not perfect, however highly usable.Cheers.

~dinky

I don't think there is enough hard drive space in the 901 to run windows and eeebuntu at the same time. I barely had enough room for XP on it's own... one of the reasons I installed eeebuntu...

Have you tried asking in the eeeuser forums? You might have more luck there...