Power-drain during suspend?

[Kevin Oberman]

> Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 10:16:52 +0100
> From: Gregers Petersen <gp.ioa at cbs.dk>
> Sender: owner-freebsd-mobile at freebsd.org
> 
> Anish Mistry wrote:
> Just a data point.  I have a similar problem on my laptop (Fujitsu
> > P2110).  Using the acpi_video DPMS patch posted by jhb a while ago 
> > helps out quite a lot and allows me to suspend for almost 24 hours 
> > vs. about 9.  This is still way less than Windows 2000 on the same 
> > system which can be suspended for a week with just over 25% power 
> > drain.  I've tried with a stripped down kernel that is just enough to 
> > boot eg. no USB, Firewire, network, etc.do_power_nodriver=3  and I 
> > still have the same problem.
> 
> 
> I have been looking at the patch - and in as much as it has been posted 
> quite a long time ago, I was wondering if it had been "merged" with the 
> present src ?
> If that is not the case - then I have to admit the following; I have 
> never before 'added a patch'. So I would need to know how I do that 
> (feel very silly and novice like, asking this) ...

I believe that jhb is working (as time permits) on a general VGA support
capability which would include DPMS support, but, if you have a Radeon
graphics card, I think you will be better off using RadeonTool for the
job. It works very cleanly on my system where the DPMS patch required
switching to a VTY and back to X after a resume.

I have also seen one report that the system uses less power when
RadeonTool turns off the display, but I have not verified this
personally.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634