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 |
| 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 |
| T23 | Ubuntu 7.04 | 10.7W | |
| T41p | Ubuntu 7.04 | Undervolted, fglrx, no dri; fan->+0.5W, powerstate=2->+0.7W, HD->+1.5W | 8.3W |
| 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 | 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 |
| X21 | Kubuntu 7.04 | Absolute minimal consumption. With several programs open, the average minimal consumption is about 6W | 5.5W |
| X31 | Debian Etch | 2.6.22rc6+hrt1 patch+radeon patch | ~ 8 W |
| 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 |
| Ubuntu Gutsy(tribe6) | 2.6.23-rc6-hrt1 x86_64, everything unloaded & stopped, lcd backlight off, hd powered down, powertop 1.8 | 8.5W |
