1

I have a dell xps15 9530 with high capacity battery. On Ubuntu 15.10 I was getting 6-8hrs battery life using intel graphics, but on 16.10 I only get around 2 hours. Powertop shows 20-30w power usage while idle.

Is there any way to find what is causing this?

mp035
  • 151
  • 6
  • 1
    Possible duplicate of [How do I monitor power consumption?](http://askubuntu.com/questions/73904/how-do-i-monitor-power-consumption) – David Foerster Aug 07 '16 at 08:29
  • Just for anyone with a similar issue, I switched to vanilla Ubuntu and the problem was gone. The issue occurs on Ubuntu-Gnome. I switch back to the Ubuntu-Gnome partition every few months and apt-get update, but the problem is still there. – mp035 Apr 21 '17 at 03:14

1 Answers1

1

Ok, so after nearly 12 months, I have solved it. The problem was the NFC radio on the dell xps was permanently enabled. In vanilla Ubuntu there does not seem to be a driver, but there is one in Ubuntu Gnome.

Running

rfkill block nfc

reduced the power consumption by around 8 watts on standby.

mp035
  • 151
  • 6
  • Ubuntu GNOME and Unity come with exactly the same kernels and drivers. However, GNOME may enable Bluetooth by default while Unity doesn't. – David Foerster Apr 21 '17 at 09:54