8/27/2011

Runtime on notebooks

Got an Apple MacBook Pro towards the start of the year. Issue was that closing the lid only puts the machine in stand by mode which still consumes power, so I wasn't getting as long a runtime as I would on my old HP nx6120 with a travel battery.

A Google search led me to Todd Huss's[2] page below. This identified the pmset[1] command as being quite useful. I followed the instructions and now have the MacBook hibernating when I close the lid. Since then I have been asked by a number of colleagues about this, so thought I better document it here.

I rebuilt the old HP nx6120 to run Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Again noticed that I wasn't getting reasonable runtime, instead of the usual 8-10 hrs, I only got around 3-4hrs. A discussion with a colleague led me to Linux Laptop Tools. Again some "Googling" led to the Ubuntu power management[3] which seemed to increase the runtime.

References

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pmset
  2. http://gabrito.com/post/hibernate-with-the-macbook-pro
  3. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerManagement

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