Re: [Powertop] powertop putting far too much blame on wifi

[Alexandra Yates <alexandra.yates at linux.intel.com>]

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> On Monday 06 January 2014 at 11:53:15, Andreas wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 05, 2014 at 12:00:02PM -0800, powertop-request(a)lists.01.org
> wrote:
>> > From: Marc MERLIN <marc_powertop(a)merlins.org>
>> >
>> > Unfortunately, it's not just you. I've reported the same problem
>> > multiple times over the last year, but not heard back from anyone yet
>> > (except you saying you see the same).
>> >
>> > I had this on a T530, and now it's even worse on a T540:
>> > The battery reports a discharge rate of 28.5 W
>> > The estimated remaining time is 1 hours, 53 minutes
>> >
>> > Summary: 689.5 wakeups/second,  214.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec
>> and
>> > 10.4% CPU use
>> >
>> > Power est.              Usage       Events/s    Category
>> Description
>> >
>> >   15.3 W     95.8%                      Device         Display
>> backlight
>> >   2.07 W     36.0 ms/s     642.4        Process
>> >   /usr/bin/enlightenment
>> >   115 mW      4.5 ms/s      62.3        Interrupt      PS/2 Touchpad /
>> >   Keyboard / Mouse>
>> >  86.8 mW      0.9 ms/s      37.0        Process        xfce4-terminal
>> -T
>> >  window11 --role=window11 --tab 71.3 mW     35.4 ms/s      36.2
>> >  Process        /usr/bin/X :0 vt7 -br -nolisten tcp -auth /var/r 51.2
>> mW
>> >      0.8 ms/s      27.9        Timer          hrtimer_wakeup>
>> > 15W for my backlight at mid brightness? I don't think so.
>>
>> 600+ wakeups/second sounds like the usual intermediate activity
>> due to touchpad/mouse movement (that figure is exactly what I usually
>> got
>> on my machine), and if that is the case
>> (what happens if the human part gets its dirty fingers off the machine?
>> :)
>> then it's strange to see this otherwise *very high* value (642.4)
>> attributed to /usr/bin/enlightenment (a very seasoned/stable WM, for
>> crying out loud) rather than mouse as in the *directly following*
>>     PS/2 Touchpad / Keyboard / Mouse
>> line.
>>
>> Or, in other words, this example hints at a rather mischievous mixup of
>> data, e.g. an off-by-1 or a post-insert of certain items without
>> accounting
>> for other columns (within the data model, of course), or perhaps (the
>> column data values might even support such a suspicion) even completely
>> wrong (re-sorted) display of data.
>>
>> Perhaps I should actually test/investigate a recent powertop version...
>> ;)
>>
>> Andreas Mohr
>
> IMHO, the usage and event counters seem to be valid. What's wrong is
> energy
> estimation: it is done entirely in software, using some strange
> semi-heuristic
> guesswork.
>
> --
> Ivan Shapovalov / intelfx /_______________________________________________
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> PowerTop(a)lists.01.org
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>

Try disabling the device and rerunning PowerTOP see if there is a
difference there. You could send the debug output to find out what are
your wifi parameters.

Thank you,
Alexandra.