I’ve installed TLP on my Lenovo ThinkBook laptop and was wondering if there are additional steps I can take to extend the battery life when using the laptop unplugged.

Could you please share more tips and tricks for maximizing battery life on Linux laptops?

  • Veraxis@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    I am not sure what graphics you have, but I have an older-ish laptop with hybrid 10-series Nvidia graphics which do not fully power down even with TLP installed. I was finding that it continued to draw a continuous 7W even in an idle state. I installed envycontrol so that I can manually turn off/on hybrid graphics or force the use of integrated graphics. I noticed my battery life jumped from 2-3 hours to 4-5 hours after I did this, and unless I am gaming (which I rarely do on this laptop) I hardly ever need the dgpu in this.

    I also use TLP. I have tried auto-cpufreq and powertop, and I found TLP offered the most granular control and worked the best for my system/needs.

    • loutr@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      9 months ago

      Do you know if blacklisting nouveau actually disables the dGPU? It’s a work laptop so the iGPU is more than enough so I figured I wouldn’t bother with bumblebee or whatnot, but the battery life is shit :'(

      • Veraxis@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        9 months ago

        Sorry for the late reply. It sounds like it could be due to the dGPU if your battery life is terrible. I don’t know if that method would work or not. I had to try a couple different things before I eventually settled on envycontrol.

    • mFat@lemdro.idOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      9 months ago

      My laptop has Intel UHD graphics. Things are slightly better since I enabled TLP.