Acer Timeline 3810T

[eScenCe]

I was following development of Ubuntu and Acer Timeline patches latley and again I wanted to ask two important things:

a. Is there finally a solution under linux to disable the HD4330 and running battery power only from the onboard graphic card?

b. If things above are finaly fixed, how long do the Acer runs from battery power?
Last time I tried it, battery was empty after ~5 hours because of the gc issue - losing nearly 3 hours isn't simply acceptable. Is it possible to reach ~6 hours now?

I would be really thankful for replies.

[pimseb]

Hello,

Today I've received my Acer Aspire timeline 3810 TZG.
I've read a bit this forum but I feel I don't have the best power management.
I've installed Powertop. The lowest power consumption I've seen was 19 W. Usually it's around 20-22 W. I'm only surfing on firefox with the brightness low and wifi on.
What can I do to make the consumption lower ?
I've installed linux-backports-modules-karmic-generic. Some posts here are about wifi power management. How do I turn that on ?
The fan of the computer is always spinning. Is there a way to stop it ?
And last question like the post above : can we disable the HD4330 ?
I'm quite new to ubuntu, switched from windows some weeks ago and I don't really want to turn back to microsoft. But if W7 gives me 8 hours battery instead of 4, I could think about it :s
I'm using karmic 9.10. My kernel is 2.6.31 and bios of my motherboard is the latest (1.20)
Thank you for your help !

[miegiel]

You can disable the HD4330 in the BIOS at least. It's a bit of a drag, but unless you're going to play a 3D game you won't need the HD4330 anyway and might as well leave it turned off.

[eScenCe]

You can disable the HD4330 in the BIOS at least. It's a bit of a drag, but unless you're going to play a 3D game you won't need the HD4330 anyway and might as well leave it turned off.

That would be really big.
I don't use it anyway, sometimes on Win7 for World of Warcraft but I wouldn't mind to use the 3810 as a Office Notebook "full-time".

How long does the 3810 runs without HD4330 compared to switched on Graphic Card?
You tested that already?

btw: I'm running bios rev 1.17 ; and I can only switch between "Switchable" and "Discrete" - with discrete meaning only the 4330 is running, or?
Where can I disable it?

[miegiel]

...

How long does the 3810 runs without HD4330 compared to switched on Graphic Card?
You tested that already?

Yes I decided to turn off the HD4330 in my wallet and buy the 3810T. I haven't played wow on this laptop, but I have played freeciv (doesn't really count I guess). Honestly, I never missed not having the HD4330.

Oh, and my battery times are crap. The battery got decalibrated and I can't get it to recalibrate. I get about 4 hours on my workload, it used to be something between 5 and 6 hours.

btw: I'm running bios rev 1.17 ; and I can only switch between "Switchable" and "Discrete" - with discrete meaning only the 4330 is running, or?
Where can I disable it?

There's a 4810TG thread if you can't find it in this thread, you might need a certain BIOS.

[acermobile]

Hi.

Battery life on Intel graphics only compared to ATI only is approximately the same for me. However, some applications REQUIRE hardware open gl to simply launch. Honestly I can't think of any reason to turn of the ATI consindering the described situation.

Here is a small script I wrote for enabling laptop mode. It enlarges bat. life by more than one hour for me, so it may be worth trying:

#!/bin/sh

sudo su -c "echo 5 > /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode"
sudo su -c "echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/link_power_management_policy"
sudo su -c "echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host1/link_power_management_policy"
sudo su -c "echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host2/link_power_management_policy"
sudo su -c "echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host3/link_power_management_policy"
sudo su -c "echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host4/link_power_management_policy"
sudo su -c "echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host5/link_power_management_policy"
sudo su -c "echo 500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs"
sudo laptop_mode start
# sudo hdparm -S 4 /dev/sda
sudo iwconfig wlan0 power on
Other bat.time life increases are possible by disabling compiz. Here is a part of my xorg.conf:

Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/fglrx"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "extmod"
Load "dbe"
Load "record"
Load "dri"
Load "dri2"
Load "glx"
Load "GL"
Load "vbetool"
Load "freetype"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AIGLX" "off"
Option "DontZap" "on"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
# Option "AIGLX" "on"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
Driver "fglrx"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
Option "backingstore" "on"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
Option "AddARGBVisuals" "True"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "MonitorLayout" "LCD,CRT"
Option "MergedFB" "True"
Option "OverlayOnCRTC2" "true"
Option "CRT2Position" "RightOf"
Option "DesktopSetup" "horizontal"
# Option "UseInternalAGPGART" "no"
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
Option "Monitor-LCD" "0-LCD"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
Option "RENDER" "Enable"
Option "DAMAGE" "Enable"
Option "XVideo" "Enable"
EndSection


Hope this is usefull for somebody.

Best,
Felix

[eScenCe]

Yes I decided to turn off the HD4330 in my wallet and buy the 3810T. I haven't played wow on this laptop, but I have played freeciv (doesn't really count I guess). Honestly, I never missed not having the HD4330.

Oh, and my battery times are crap. The battery got decalibrated and I can't get it to recalibrate. I get about 4 hours on my workload, it used to be something between 5 and 6 hours.



There's a 4810TG thread if you can't find it in this thread, you might need a certain BIOS.

Acually I'm quite unsure about what you wanted to tell me?
Is there a way to deactivate it through BIOS or not?
The search via the board don't reply anthing, else I wouldn't asked.
And browsing over 120 pages isn't that ... well , you know?

Any ideas how to?

[miegiel]

Acually I'm quite unsure about what you wanted to tell me?
Is there a way to deactivate it through BIOS or not?
The search via the board don't reply anthing, else I wouldn't asked.
And browsing over 120 pages isn't that ... well , you know?

Any ideas how to?

This is the thread and post I meant. "Discrete" is an ambiguous term for "use ATI graphics only". I always forget if it's ATI or Intel only

What I wanted to say was; "You only really need to be able to turn it off, even if it's a hassle to go through the BIOS, only in rare circumstances the 4330 will give you a advantage in graphics performance". I remember reading somewhere it's possible to only use the intel graphics on the x810TG, but I can't remember where. It's posible that you can only switch to "intel only" in certain BIOSes (I think I read that somewhere, not 100% sure).

Finally: When I took my 3810T apart, I found a empty card slot under the keyboard (2nd image, top right corner). Who knows? That might be where the 4330 resides in the 3810TG. If it does removing the card might be an option.

[eScenCe]

This is the thread and post I meant. "Discrete" is an ambiguous term for "use ATI graphics only". I always forget if it's ATI or Intel only


What I wanted to say was ... brb ... I'll finish the post in a few min ...

Yeah, but I want to disable the 4330 ; not using it all time

[pimseb]

I'm testing my Acer aspire timeline 3810tzg.
The battery life in ubuntu is really bad
Here are my consumption results :

WINDOWS 7 - screen brightness lowest for all tests - battery saving mode.
Intel videocard - wifi OFF - idle ==> 5 - 5,5 W
Intel videocard - wifi ON - idle ==> 5,5 - 6 W
Intel videocard - wifi ON - youtube watching ==> 10 - 14 W
ATI videocard - wifi OFF - idle ==> 6,5 - 7,5 W
ATI videocard - wifi ON - idle ==> 7,5 - 9 W
ATI videocard - wifi ON - youtube watching ==> 12 - 14 W

UBUNTU - screen brightness at lowest for all tests
(don't know how to switch from Intel to ATI)
Wifi OFF - laptop mode enabled - powertop enabled (all power saving options set) ==> 17 W is the lowest I can get

So ... you see. Battery in windows will last 2 times more than in Ubuntu. I'm afraid ... How can we fix that ?