Home / ubuntu / Questions / 615914
Accepted
Roy Emmarson
Asked: 2015-04-30 06:59:12 +0800 CST

How To Get Rid of This? Ubuntu is Definitely Consuming More Power Than Windows! [duplicate]

  • 772

System details: Intel Core i5 2.50GH, Nvidia, 2GB RAM, 32bit O/S for both Linux and Windows.

Well I have been using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS for nearly 1 week. I have noticed whenever my laptop runs on Ubuntu its battery last only half an hour. On the other hand when I run laptop on Windows 7 battery last nearly 1 hour! This is amazing. I always thought Linux is far away than windows in every technical aspects. But unfortunately this is not true when it comes to power management technology! Well I did read some old posts in Ubuntu forum and here on askubuntu too. I see many experts (or at least experienced users) not acknowledging this fact and often they are saying this is simply not true. They showed many statistics from their end but to me none of them are convincing at all. However I myself did few tests and here is my test results...

  • I charged my Laptop during 5 hours seamlessly and then unplugged the power cable from main power supply and run my laptop on Ubuntu. Battery lasted only 28 minutes.
  • Then again I charged my Laptop during 5 hours seamlessly and unplugged the power cable from main power supply and run my laptop on Windows 7. Battery lasted nearly 54 minutes.

I did this litmus test 2 times more. Here are the results....

  • 1st Test - Ubuntu - 28m | Windows7 - 54m
  • 2nd Test - Ubuntu - 26m | Windows7 - 1h
  • 3rd Test - Ubuntu - 28m | Windows7 - 55m

So this is clear Ubuntu failed in race with Windows7. Well now my question is how to solve this problem? The only reason why I provided you test results is because some guys might start arguing that Ubuntu is not consuming more power than Windows and I know which is simple not true. At least in my tests I didn't get any evidence to agree with them.

14.04

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Try to use:

    http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-management.html

    Windows 7 lasts 4.5 on battery, Ubuntu lasted only 2 hours at best... later I installed TLP and Im at 5 1/2 - 6 hours (with Intel GPU in use instead of NVIDIA)

    Not to mention the fact, that this has been discussed a lot of times...else I wouldnt know about this

    • 1