Idle consumptions

This page reports the minimal consumptions of Thinkpads when idle. This means, in principle: minimum brightness, CPU and GPU at lowest speed, no wifi, hard drive spun down, no pcmcia cards inserted (see details of each entry).

This kind of information has several uses: comparing one's consumption with that of other people's setups, knowing which model to use as a gateway/file server, etc.

Model	OS	Remarks	consumption
600E PII/366	Debian Lenny/2.6.21 gnome	back light off, laptop-mode-tools enabled, fan on, idling, measured with powertop	6W
600E PII/366	Debian Lenny/2.6.21 gnome	Min brightness, laptop-mode-tools enabled, fan on, idling, measured with powertop	7.5W
600E PII/366	Debian Lenny/2.6.21 gnome	Max brightness, laptop-mode-tools enabled, fan on, idling, measured with powertop	9.2W
600E PII/366	Debian Lenny/2.6.21 gnome	Max brightness, laptop-mode-tools enabled, fan on, 100% cpu utilisation, measured with powertop	~22W
600E PIII/450	Archlinux 0.8/xfce		9W
R50e	Gentoo (linux-2.6.22-rc4 force_HPET, fluxbox)	With Networking, USB, firefox, thunderbird	11.1W
R50e	Gentoo (linux-2.6.22-rc4 force_HPET, fluxbox)	Fluxbox + shell (+fan)	10.5W
R50e	Gentoo (linux-2.6.22-rc4 force_HPET, fluxbox)	Blank Screen after 20min idle (+fan)	7.1W
R51e	Gentoo (linux-2.6.24-gentoo-r4)	KDE, min. brightness, tp-fancontrol, ondemand, laptop_mode, madwifi-ng (no powersave), wpa_supplicant, ca 60 wakeups	14.5W
R52	Gentoo (linux-2.6.22-rc6 + phc + hrt)	Min brightness, tp-fancontrol, ipw2200 with power_save 5, undervolted, ondemand, laptop_mode, rovclock -c 100 -m 100 virtual console (idle kde desktop adds about 0.2W)	12.1W
R61	Ubuntu 7.04	Wireless on	16.4W
R61	Xubuntu 7.10	custom kernel 2.6.24, Minimal power consumption with Wireless off, hdd spun down, Backlight min, laptop-mode, ondemand, echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/sched_mc_power_savings, echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs, ALPM on, firewire module unloaded, nvidia, hdaps (powertop 1.9)	10.8W (min) ~16.5W (usable brightness, wifi on) 39.7W (max, kernel compilation with -j3 option)
T23	Ubuntu 7.04		10.7W
T40	Gentoo (2.6.23-rc6-hrt2)	Bg-timer patch, HPET-patches, radeon, rovclock -c 105 -m 122, no DRI, sound power_save = Y, min. brightness, no networking, with USB, Laptop-Mode, X & 1x URxvt	7,4W
T41p	Ubuntu 7.10	Undervolted, fglrx, no dri; fan->+0.5W, powerstate=2->+0.7W, HD->+1.5W, no usb	7.7W
T42 (2373)	Debian 4.0 Etch	Kernel 2.6.21_rc5 + hrtimer, rovclock -c 100 -m 120 (Radeon M10), no DRI, min bright. (+3W max), no wifi (+1W if idle)	9.4W
T43 (1871)	Debian (Linux 2.6.21, fluxbox)	DRI, alsa (power_save=1), with usb, no networking	10.1W (12.0W with HD)
T43 (2669)	Gentoo (2.6.20-gentoo-r5)	Undervolted, fglrx (powerstate=1), DRI, no alsa, no usb modules, no networking	12.7W
T43 (2686)	Fedora Core 6 (2.6.19.x patched)	Undervolted, radeon, rovclock -c 125 -m 130, no DRI, ALSA power_save=1, no usb modules, no networking, min brightness, HDD spun down	15W
T60 (2007)	Fedora Core 6	Wireless kill switch on, 1400x1050 panel @ min brightness, fglrx (powerstate=1), HDD spun up (~1W saving without)	16W
T60 (2007)	Kubuntu 7.04	1400x1050 panel @ min brightness, hald killed, laptop mode enabled, wireless powersave	13.3 W
T60 (2007)	KUbuntu 7.04	Wireless on, 1680x1050 panel @ medium brightness, fglrx (powerstate=1)	16W
T60 (2623D6U)	Debian testing (linux-2.6.21-1-686)	1400x1050 14" min-bright, iwpriv wlan0 set_power 7, VESA driver	12,7W
T61	Ubuntu 8.04	14" 1024x768 panel,intel graphics, 6% bright, wireless off, vanilla kernel 2.6.25	9.5W
T61	Gentoo 2008.0	14" 1440x900 panel, nVidia, min brightness, wireless off, sound off, nvidia unloaded, laptop_mode, gentoo-sources 2.6.25-gentoo-r6, measured with powertop	~13W
X200s	Arch Linux	SL9400, 12.1" 1440x900 panel, min. brightness, wifi/bt off	7.2W
X21	Kubuntu 7.04	Minimal consumption with kde loaded.	5.5W
X31	Debian Etch	2.6.22rc6+hrt1 patch+radeon patch	~ 8 W
X31 (2672-C2G)	Debian Etch	vanilla 2.6.23rc8 tickless kernel, wireless rf-kill on, min brightness, hdd idle but spinning	~ 9.6 W
X32	Slackware	2.6.23.1+hrt3 patch, tickless kernel, undervolted to 0.716, ati gfx @ 90mhz core 90mhz mem, hdd is CF, min brightness, wifi ON	~ 8.2 W
X32	Slackware	2.6.23.1+hrt3 patch, tickless kernel, undervolted to 0.716, ati gfx @ 90mhz core 90mhz mem, hdd is CF, max brightness, wifi ON	~ 11 W
X40	Kubuntu 7.10	2.6.22, min brightness, wifi ON	~8.7W
X40	Opensuse 11.0; June08	std. install + laptop-mode-tools.rpm; 2.6.25, min brightness, wifi on. normal X-server, hd spun down	~8.0W
X41	Fedora 7	2.6.23.1+phc patch, tickless kernel, undervolted to 0.7, under X, min brightness, wifi ON	~11W
X60	Ubuntu 7.04	Wireless kill switch on, min brightness	10.2W
X60s	Debian Etch	2.6.21 tickless kernel, processes tweaked with powertop, usb/fw unloaded, hd spun down, min brightness, ipw3945 set to powersave mode 7	8.3W
X60s	Debian Etch	2.6.21 tickless kernel, processes tweaked with powertop, usb/fw unloaded, hd spun down, min brightness,ipw3945 unloaded	9W
X60s	Debian Lenny(testing)	2.6.22 tickless kernel, hrt-patch, alpm-patches, almost everything unloaded (wifi,pcmcia,ethernet,usb,firewire,sd,snd) and stopped (no X11,only cron/syslog), no vesa-fb, min brightness, 5 min idle, measured with powertop 1.7 (ACPI)	7.7W
X60s	Debian Lenny(testing)	2.6.22 tickless kernel, hrt-patch, alpm-patches, almost everything unloaded (wifi,pcmcia,ethernet,usb,firewire,sd,snd), with X11 (latest intel-xorg-driver, DRI enabled) and one x-terminal running, min brightness, 5 min idle, measured with powertop 1.7 (ACPI)	8.3W
X61 Tablet	Ubuntu Gutsy(tribe6)	2.6.23-rc6-hrt1 x86_64, everything unloaded & stopped, lcd backlight off, hd powered down, powertop 1.8	8.5W
X61 Tablet	Xubuntu Gutsy	2.6.24-rc3, everything unloaded, lcd backlight 10%, hd powered down, powertop 1.8	7,8W
X61s (7666-36G)	Debian Sid	2.6.27.7, everything unloaded, HD spinned down, xbacklight -set 0, idle Xfce desktop, SATA poweroff patch, Xorg intel driver with framebuffer compression enabled	8,4W