Re: [gentoo-user] Intel SRT + SSD + SATA

[Mick]

On Wednesday 26 Jun 2013 09:17:37 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 26/06/2013 08:32, J. Roeleveld wrote:

> > Can you give me the full speclist of your machine with the part-numbers?
> > I am checking if a new machine will fit my budget and your workload looks
> > similar to mine :)
>
> It's a Dell Precision M4600, and you find it in the Workstation section
> on Dell's website. It's since been superceded by the M4700 which is
> really just a point upgrade.
>
> CPU:
> processor       : 0
> vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
> cpu family      : 6
> model           : 42
> model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz

I am using the 1st generation of the same CPU on I guess an older dell studio 
XPS:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU       Q 720  @ 1.60GHz

> cpu prices vary hugely so I picked a mid-range i7 and used the saving to
> get 16G ram and maxed out the storage.
> ATI display to get away from nVidia, I think that was a mistake and next
> time will be going back to nVidia whose power management actually works.
> There was some uber-fancy active display on offer too, but I don't need
> that

Have you tried to change the default power setting for your video card?

I have this card:

           *-display
                description: VGA compatible controller
                product: RV730/M96-XT [Mobility Radeon HD 4670]
                vendor: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
                version: 00
                width: 32 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: pm pciexpress msi vga_controller bus_master 
cap_list rom
                configuration: driver=radeon latency=0
                resources: irq:45 memory:d0000000-dfffffff 
ioport:2000(size=256) memory:cfef0000-cfefffff memory:cfe00000-cfe1ffff

and have this little file auto-switching my video cards fan from running non-
stop:

cat /etc/local.d/set_radeon_power_profile.start 
echo auto > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile

Apparently, the binary fglrx driver manages power switching more effectively, 
but with the radeon driver you'll need to switch it yourself.  I can't recall 
what I might have had to enable in the kernel, but if you can't get it going 
let me know and I'll poke around my .config.


> Battery life is shocking :-), make sure you get 9-cell high capacity
> batteries, my standard 6 cell has *<60 minutes* life. The wife has one
> too and her's lasts about 100 minutes using Windows

I have the 9-cell battery and it lasts > than 60  minutes while playing video, 
browsing, emailing, opening and closing spreadsheets, etc. despite being 
almost 4 years old.  Since I've set it to auto for video card power management 
the battery last longer.

-- 
Regards,
Mick