Experiences with Asus UL30

[mric]

I just noticed that my battery capacity is at 98 percent. I'm wondering if this is normal because I bought my laptop only 2 weeks ago...

Also, using the function key to switch off wireless works but the wireless led is still on. The question is, does the function key really disable the adapter?

mine is at 97% .. discharged it completely after i bought it. will keep an eye on this.

great community btw, will try the energy saving tricks as mine still on 14w when idle

[Cierreics]

Sorry, I've messed up with bluetooth stuff, you have NOT to edit the bluetooth resume script, my previous post is wrong!!

I've edited it, if you have already applied my tips, revert bluetooth resume script to original:

sudo gedit /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/49bluetooth

delete all and paste this:

#!/bin/sh
# IBM specific hack to disable/enable bluetooth.
# TODO: Doesn't the working USB suspend/resume functionality
#       make this code more or less obsolete?

. "${PM_FUNCTIONS}"

[ -f /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth ] || exit $NA

suspend_bluetooth()
{
	if grep -q enabled /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth; then
		savestate ibm_bluetooth enable
		echo disable > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth
	else
		savestate ibm_bluetooth disable
	fi
}

resume_bluetooth()
{
	state_exists ibm_bluetooth || return
	restorestate ibm_bluetooth > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth
}

case "$1" in
	hibernate|suspend)
		suspend_bluetooth
		;;
	thaw|resume)
		resume_bluetooth
		;;
	*) exit $NA
		;;
esac

save and close.

Sorry again!!


With all my settings I get 6.3 - 6.4 watts on idle with wifi ON, thanks to wireless power saving!!

One strange thing is that after suspend there's 0.2 - 0.3 watts power conspumption increase....don't know why....

[Hobbes]

Thanks again for all the tips.

I have enabled nvidia driver and card on my ul30vt as explained by a previous poster. I then applied most of the power-saving tricks given here (not all the ram ones because i only have 2gb ram and no swap space right now so i'm hesitant to write too much to ram in case it fills up).

Also upgraded to newer kernel, my power usage is now about 11 watts with wifi on (though this is after a suspend, and for some reason it is now saying my webcam is always on, that message i haven't seen before). Still pretty good considering a discrete graphics card is being used, my battery life is estimated at around 6-7 hours.

My brightness keys aren't working after kernel upgrade (opposite of everyone else , so maybe i need to undo the patch I used to get them to work before the upgrade. Everything else works as far as I can tell (touchpad disable, etc)

[AXBX7C]

Great tips! I managed to get my power consumption down to about 6 W idle. With WiFi enabled and some Web surfing / Word processing it hardly goes over 8-9 W. I think that's pretty good.

I'm not sure whether buying a SSD makes sense. Prices are too high and capacities to low for my personal taste. I believe this will change soon, though...

@mric: My battery health is around 98%. According to Asus' customer support, values between 95 and 100 percent are supposed to be normal for a newly purchased battery.

[mediamind]

Hi all - thanks very much for all the great tips! I have a UL30VT-X1 and am running Lucid (2.6.34-3-generic - via Cierreics' Post #110).

I'm having trouble getting my screen brightness hotkeys to work. I downloaded elchicosinhada's scripts (Post #63 - P.7) and used them to replace my own ACPI scripts. I can now turn the touchpad on/off with Fn+F9.

However, using Fn+F5 or Fn+F6 doesn't affect the screen brightness at all. What am I doing wrong?

[Cierreics]

Hi all, I've noticed there are two Evolution daemons that may drain some power, they keep running even after you have closed Evolution, you can uninstall them if you don't need Exchange sync and Ubuntu One calendar and contacts sync:

sudo apt-get purge evolution-exchange evolution-couchdb

However, using Fn+F5 or Fn+F6 doesn't affect the screen brightness at all. What am I doing wrong?

I have an UL30A, with Intel VGA, I don't know how to get working brightness controls on UL30VT...

[KlavKalashj]

My battery capacity is 84,4%, and I bought this laptop in end of september. I guess it's kind of normal usage. I have been really careful with it though, not charing it below/above 40/60% when I don't need, and remove it from computer when on AC and enough charge. Sorry for bad english, I hope you understand anyway

[The Flying Penguin]

Hmmm. I'm getting around 11.9- 14 watts for power consumption with your new power saving tips Cierreics. I don't have a SSD though.

What do you have your screen brightness set to?

Sadly, I am unable to adjust my brightness now after installing the nvidia drivers. I did that hot key fix for when I was using the Intel card. How would I go about resolving this issue?

I'm sure If I could turn my brightness down I would see a nice improvement in battery life.

[mediamind]

Sadly, I am unable to adjust my brightness now after installing the nvidia drivers. I did that hot key fix for when I was using the Intel card. How would I go about resolving this issue?

A workaround for controlling screen brightness is to add the Power Manager Brightness Applet to your panel (Right click on the panel > Add to Panel... > Brightness Applet). Once installed, you can click on the Brightness Applet and then control the screen brightness with the Page Up and Page Down arrows on your keyboard.

[The Flying Penguin]

A workaround for controlling screen brightness is to add the Power Manager Brightness Applet to your panel (Right click on the panel > Add to Panel... > Brightness Applet). Once installed, you can click on the Brightness Applet and then control the screen brightness with the Page Up and Page Down arrows on your keyboard.

Upgrading to this new kernel seems to have caused some issues for me. I can't add anything to my panel. I click add and nothing happens. Also, none of my programs are showing on my bottom bar at all so I have to use ALT+TAB to switch between them. I don't really care for how the file manager looks either. It's quite different in appearance then when I first installed Lucid.

EDIT: So I left my computer for like 10 minutes and now I have a whole bunch of applets on my bar from all the times I clicked add when nothing happened and my programs are back in the bottom bar. I restarted and I can still add applets with no problems now and my programs are back in the bottom bar. Must have just been a glitch?

And the brightness applet doesn't work. When I click on it the slider pops up but once I click on that, it disappears. The next time I click the brightness applet, the slider appears all the way on the far left side of the screen.