Gathering interest on official Ubuntu support for Precision M3800

Hi All,

I have now used the M3800 for a while, and I really like the machine. I dual boot win 8.1/Ubuntu due to my different tasks.

One thing I noticed in Ubuntu that is way worse than in Win is the power consumption. The laptop gets way hotter (you can't have it in your lap with Ubuntu), and the battery only lasts ½ as long. The machine is soo good otherwise.

Any ideas?

Cheers Michael

Hey Michael,

For the heat and the battery consumption it is probably the fact that you have always the discrete nvidia graphics card on. With Nvidia prime you can check which graphics card is used. If you use the intel one, then the consumption is more or less the same, and also there is low heat from the laptop.

Cheers,
Kostas

PS. I don't own a M3800, but this is what happens with my ubuntu laptop. I wish I would have an ubuntu M3800 though :D

I have now switched to the Intel GPU (with the NVDIA prime after selecting the proprietary NVDIA driver). Then I installed and ran TLP. However, this still gives max 3-4 hours of battery power doing simple office tasks. Doing the same in Win8.1 gives me almost an entire workday (I have the 90W battery). I run basically the same programs in both OS (Firefox, Thunderbird, Dropbox), but the back of the PC gets way warmer in Ubuntu!

One other thing I noticed is that Win automatically dims the screen (probably based on the webcam readings). Will check to see if the same can be done in Ubuntu.

Cheers Michael

Have you ran powertop to see what's hogging power?

Yes I have run PowerTop many times now. It is however at bit complicated for me to understand all the outputs, but It is clear that the display background light is a power hawk (as expected). Likewise my Logitech Unifying Receiver (USB plug for my mouse) is using in the area of 5,5W (of about 15W in total). I have flipped the "bad" power users to "good" in PowerTop, and it helps a bit, but I can't see how these settings can be applied automatically at startup (and how does these settings correspond to TLP?). Anyhow, I guess the driver for the Logitech USB plug in not optimized for power consumption, compared to Win.

I also checked that the intel_pstate driver (CPU frequency governor) is not loaded in Ubuntu, but only the more general govenor.

Any advice is appreciated.

Michael

Yes I have run PowerTop many times now. It is however at bit complicated for me to understand all the outputs

This doesn't explain all of the data, but it helps: https://01.org/sites/default/files/page/powertop_users_guide_201406.pdf

Likewise my Logitech Unifying Receiver (USB plug for my mouse) is using in the area of 5,5W (of about 15W in total).

I rarely have my display at full brightness. I typically get around 4-6 hours of life but don't keep any peripherals plugged in. I also use bumblebee to disable the discrete graphics since I don't really have a need for it. Obviously with it enabled, battery life will be much worse.

I can't see how these settings can be applied automatically at startup (and how does these settings correspond to TLP?).

The laptop-mode-tools package sets most of these settings at boot. Make sure you have at least version 1.65 because that adds support for intel_pstate. Read the documentation for it on how to tweak l-m-t.

I also checked that the intel_pstate driver (CPU frequency governor) is not loaded in Ubuntu, but only the more general govenor.

It should be built-in to the kernel and not a module. "cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_driver" would tell you if intel_pstate is being used. You want it to be.

Hi Jared, thanks for your comments,

Yes I read the fine manual, but must admit it did not answer all my questions. One question I have is: should the measurement be made with a completely untouched laptop, no interactive programs running, and only starting powertop in the first terminal window?

I also disabled the discrete graphics with nvidia prime.

I am running acpi-cpufreq and haven't found a way to enable the intel_pstate driver. Ubuntu has disabled it and I can't find out how to enable it.

You say that laptop-mode will set many of the PowerTop recommendations. Right now I use TLP, which is incompatible with laptop-mode, so would you recommend laptop-mode instead?

Thanks, Michael

Yes I read the fine manual, but must admit it did not answer all my questions. One question I have is: should the measurement be made with a completely untouched laptop, no interactive programs running, and only starting powertop in the first terminal window?

I run it while I have all my typically running programs open so I get a better idea of usage.

I also disabled the discrete graphics with nvidia prime.

I use bumblebee instead of PRIME because I'm using the open source nouveau video driver instead of the proprietary one. I vaguely recall trying the nvidia-prime package but having some powersaving issues.

I am running acpi-cpufreq and haven't found a way to enable the intel_pstate driver. Ubuntu has disabled it and I can't find out how to enable it.

I only have Ubuntu utopic and Debian testing systems handy at the moment (at least for hardware recent enough to support intel_pstate. It's enabled by default in both utopic and Debian testing. I'm not sure about Ubuntu 14.04, though there at least there looks like there's a kernel boot option you can pass to enable it.

By the way, if using intel_pstate, you should also install thermald.

You say that laptop-mode will set many of the PowerTop recommendations. Right now I use TLP, which is incompatible with laptop-mode, so would you recommend laptop-mode instead?

Can you expand "TLP"? I'm not sure what you're referring to.

I would also buy an XPS15 with Ubuntu as soon at the option is available. thx

I've recently decided that my next laptop will be one with Linux pre-installed and have been considering my options. I'm currently on the fence between a System76 laptop and the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition. The build quality and support for the Dell product is obviously superior, and the only reason I'm looking at System76 is because I can get a machine with a little more power and the latest, stable release of Ubuntu.

If Dell was offering a Precision M3800 with Ubuntu 14.04 pre-installed. I wouldn't even be shopping around. I would have made my order for one yesterday.

@Nkellerhals,

thanks for the feedback and stay tuned :)

Barton

Hi,

I am happy to hear that !

I am running Ubuntu 14.04 on an XPS15 since it was released.  I am curious about if the different HDPI challenges are are going to be resolved ( e.g. java applications like eclipse or oracle sql-developer are not really scalable with the gome-dektop HDPI features, I was also not able to scale vm-ware view client )

Finally I switched back to a lower resolution and it is fine.

bwt. I was able to make the ambient light sensor working using this solution:

github.com/.../Asus-Zenbook-Ambient-Light-Sensor-Controller

May be this can be included somehow in an ppa :-).

br

Matthias

This is indeed good news! I definitely second that Dell creates an official PPA with additions like ALS and video drivers. I have been running my M3800 with Ubuntu for more than 6 months and it is awesome (but do require some handholding).

Br Michael