Battery Consumption on MX 19.3 too high, how can I fix it?

[spider_Leo]

There are five available bios updates for your laptop and can be found here:

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/s ... t/8305?b=1

It looks like versions 1.03 and 1.04 deal with enhancing the feature set.

Unfortunately, you will need Win 10 installed in order to apply them

Thank you, I'll update the BIOS (installing Windows) and install MX again

[spider_Leo]

There are five available bios updates for your laptop and can be found here:

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/s ... t/8305?b=1

It looks like versions 1.03 and 1.04 deal with enhancing the feature set.

Unfortunately, you will need Win 10 installed in order to apply them

I have updated the BIOS with the latest available version v1.7 on my laptop.
Nothing changed.

but with Windows, as OS, the battery has a better consumption rate

[m_pav]

A Gaming laptop with a 45W CPU and discreet Graphics that consumes anywhere between 35-55w will never have good battery life, no matter what OS is running. This has been the thorn in the side of all gaming laptops since the day they were created. I recall battery drain times of less than an hour on some with full desktop processors and they had a literal brick for their power adaptors. Tech might have moved on a bit, but high power use will always create more heat and heat is energy loss, so even at idle, your battery will be consumed faster than a regular laptop processor running at full speed.
Your best option aside from doing all you can at the OS level is to see if you cab find a high capacity battery for the machine.

[Stevo]

In your MX install, you currently have no control over the Nvidia card, so it's on at all times, wasting power and generating heat. If you can get Bumblebee working, then the Nvidia card will be off until invoked with optirun, making the battery life as least as good as in Windows (at least that how it works for me on a 2016 Acer Optimus laptop and 2018 MSI Optimus laptop).

What do you mean about an error in the Nvidia installer about a conflict with the nouveau driver? If the installation is a success, then seeing a warning about the nouveau driver conflict is a good sign and expected, and it just means you should reboot to get the new driver setup working, as the warning advises.

This is not to say that Bumblebee will not have some other issues, since new machines can be quirky, but the install should have been a success, and Bumblebee ready for testing after a reboot.

You're also supposed to be able to turn off the Nvidia card manually, without Bumblebee, by installing acpi-call-dkms and running

Code: Select all

sudo modprobe acpi_call && sudo /usr/share/doc/acpi-call-dkms/examples/turn_off_gpu.sh

If it works, one of the commands it outputs will report "worked!", and the rest will report "failed!" You can then test battery life and heat output.

[spider_Leo]

A Gaming laptop with a 45W CPU and discreet Graphics that consumes anywhere between 35-55w will never have good battery life, no matter what OS is running. This has been the thorn in the side of all gaming laptops since the day they were created. I recall battery drain times of less than an hour on some with full desktop processors and they had a literal brick for their power adaptors. Tech might have moved on a bit, but high power use will always create more heat and heat is energy loss, so even at idle, your battery will be consumed faster than a regular laptop processor running at full speed.
Your best option aside from doing all you can at the OS level is to see if you cab find a high capacity battery for the machine.

But the difference is comsiderable between Windows10 and MX19. That's why I'm sure I definitively configured MX wrong.

[spider_Leo]

In your MX install, you currently have no control over the Nvidia card, so it's on at all times, wasting power and generating heat. If you can get Bumblebee working, then the Nvidia card will be off until invoked with optirun, making the battery life as least as good as in Windows (at least that how it works for me on a 2016 Acer Optimus laptop and 2018 MSI Optimus laptop).

What do you mean about an error in the Nvidia installer about a conflict with the nouveau driver? If the installation is a success, then seeing a warning about the nouveau driver conflict is a good sign and expected, and it just means you should reboot to get the new driver setup working, as the warning advises.

This is not to say that Bumblebee will not have some other issues, since new machines can be quirky, but the install should have been a success, and Bumblebee ready for testing after a reboot.

You're also supposed to be able to turn off the Nvidia card manually, without Bumblebee, by installing acpi-call-dkms and running

Code: Select all

sudo modprobe acpi_call && sudo /usr/share/doc/acpi-call-dkms/examples/turn_off_gpu.sh

If it works, one of the commands it outputs will report "worked!", and the rest will report "failed!" You can then test battery life and heat output.

• I do get a warning about the nouveau driver conflict, but when I reboot the notebook after this conflict message, I always get the message

  Code: Select all

  [     1.169829] integrity: Problem loading X.509 certificate -65
  [     1.169849] integrity: Problem loading X.509 certificate -65
  [ ok ] Starting virtual network daemon:.
  [....] Starting SANE network scanner server: saned
  

  I don't know how to fix it. I just install MX once more.
• I don't wish to always handle the graphic card manually. Is there another way?

[Huckleberry Finn]

I don't wish to always handle the graphic card manually. Is there another way?

You can put it in Application Autostart tab, in Session and Startup from Menu, as a .sh file (but this time it will start without Nvidia always ..)

Or , again as a .sh file in Keyboard => Shortcuts tab .. if you assign just a single key say F9 , if not, something simple like Ctrl + F9 etc. then it will be so easy: Just hit a key and turn it off whenever you like :)

[spider_Leo]

I don't wish to always handle the graphic card manually. Is there another way?

You can put it in Application Autostart tab, in Session and Startup from Menu, as a .sh file (but this time it will start without Nvidia always ..)

Or , again as a .sh file in Keyboard => Shortcuts tab .. if you assign just a single key say F9 , if not, something simple like Ctrl + F9 etc. then it will be so easy: Just hit a key and turn it off whenever you like :)

Thank you for the good proposal, but does it means there is no other way to let MX19 handle it automatically with my notebook or do I miss something?

[Huckleberry Finn]

When the Nvidia driver (Bumblebee) is installed & working successfully, that will be automatic , if not, the first suggestion (autostart) will make that command automatic (but only to turn off Nvidia) at every boot.

[Stevo]

To make it a bit clearer, the MX Nvidia installer should autodetect an Optimus laptop and install Bumblebee along with the Nvidia drivers.

You can help us by copypasting the contents of /var/log/ddm.log after the installer run into a message in this thread and then enclosing it in the code tags <> button. If the install has been successful, then you can try a benchmark with the Intel card and then the Nvidia.

Code: Select all

glxspheres64
optirun glxspheres64

Eventually, we're going to have to rework the installer to add PRIME support along with Bumblebee, once that's in Debian.