[Gllug] Power consumption of Acer Aspire Revo

[Peter Childs]

2009/6/21 John Winters <john at sinodun.org.uk>:
> I was slightly disappointed with the power consumption of my Acer Aspire
> Revo (around 20W when idle) and I've been doing some experiments with
> odd results.
>
> Spinning down the hard disc seems to have no effect on power
> consumption.  Running the CPU hard obviously increases consumption (up
> to about 24W) but the oddest thing is that the lowest consumption is
> achieved with gdm running - lower than if it isn't running.
>
> If I leave the thing completely idle with minimal processes running - no
> X and no gdm) then it settles at 22W.  If I then start gdm (and thus X)
> the power consumption goes up to 24W whilst it starts and then settles
> down again to 19W.  This is without the display blanking or anything
> like that.  As soon as I stop gdm the minimum power usage goes back up
> to 22W.  This is completely reproducible.
>
> Why should a computer use less power with gdm (and X) running than without?
>

My Guess is that is screen refresh rate, No X means the machine runs
the screen at a standard refresh rate to give you the 25x80 character
display, where as X will run is what ever the screen optimized refresh
rate and resolution, which takes less power.

Peter
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