problem with cpu eating too much power, prize given if solved

Keld Jørn Simonsen
2004-06-24T15:35:13Z

Dear ACPI developers,

I have a problem with my Acer Travelmate 233.

Many times I just want to read the screen, eg emails or documents,
and then still the cpu will be in idle mode, where
it uses 7.5 W out of the about 15 W that the whole machine uses.
I have found out from Intel data sheets that my
Mobile Intel Celeron 2.0 GHz CPU consumes 7.5 W in idle loop/
stop grant/sleep states, (and 5.0 W i deep sleep state).

So I would like to have the CPU stopped completely (consuming 0 W)
while I still could read the screen. In that way I should
be able to have about double the lifetime on the battery,
going to about 7 hours from the 3.5 hours I have now.

I would like the machine to wake up again by any keystroke
on the keyboard or mouse input. I would like the input to be
reacted upon (not just used to wake up the system, and
then forgotten).

I do not have the skills to program this myself, so
instead I offer a prize of USD 1000 to the person(s) that
can give me a patch for kernel 2.6 and appropiate documentation
that can solve the above problem. The patch needs to be GPL,
and demonstrably run on my laptop. I need the patch before
2004-10-01, after what date the prize offer expires.

I would like that the patch was written in a general way to cover for
CPUs that burn considerable power in idle loop and other states, so that
other users can benefit from it. Also I would prefer that the patch be
rolled into the normal ACPI kernel source tree, but the latter request
is not a condition for the prize.

Best regards
Keld