Just in case. I retested the CPU utilization playing the movie from my HDD and got the same results.

Thanks Ctitanic.

Thats good figures. Thanks for testing.
This is getting compicated but I think i'm on top of it!

Main open question is: Why is the CPU not going into C3 power-saving states during idle (note however that the C7-M has other sleep states than C3. You should see if you can test for C1 and C2 states. ) You have proved that P-states (voltage and clockrate reduction) are working already.

75% utilisation for a 1mbps DIVX on the CPU is very high but the VLC figures show 50% which is much more reasonable.

The VN800 unichrome pro GPU can not help with MPEG4 decoding unfortunately so all the processing is done by the CPU. Essentialy, watching a high bitrate Divx is almost a full-power operation. (The wifi + BT probably wont effect battery power too much if you turn them on. They are quite low-power drain devices.) and my video duration prediction is wrong when you consider high-bitrate mpeg-4 (or other advanced video codecs - AVC's)

I expected 18watts full-power drain from a UMPC (and a bit less from a VIA) and what you're getting there is something like 18w drain from an estimated 90% power-utilisation. (The other 10% being wifi, full lcd brightness and bt.) which is slightly more than predicted.
My guess is that if you turn everything else on and put the brightness up, you will get 1:15 useage - about 20Watts max power drain. Not far off my prediction.


The really interesting test would be to play an MPEG2 video and to check the CPU utilisation. I guess you'll see much much less utilisation and if the MPEG is being decoded completely by the CPU, you might even see the CPU going into other C states and starting to power-save. I don't know what causes a P-state change but if we're very very lucky, the voltage and clockrate on the CPU could drop and you'll see some big changes in lifetime.

However, having said all that, I wouldn;t like to have to convert my Divx's into MPEG2 films just to watch them on a UMPC.
One answer would be to bounce the Divx through VLC on a server, use the server to convert on-the-fly to MPEG2 and then stream that over wifi to the UMPC. A great test if you're bored!!!!! Maybe the sling-box can stream in MPEG-2?

I'll journal all this over at Carrypad later but would be interested to see if you can run an MPEG2 file through the Eo before I do that. Please say so if you want to stop testing. I don't want to take all your time becuase of my power-saving madness!!

Regards and thanks again for all the testing.

Steve.

Playing mpg the CPU stays at the same level in vcl and it went down to 55% in Windvd. Vcl, still use less CPU. I'll be back in about 4 hours vi case you need any other test.

Quote:

You said you played an MPG.
What was the coded video inside it though? The audio also needs to be determined.
A good source of MPEG2 is a VOB file from a DVD. I think WinDVD can play them. Van also mentioned in his tests that you have to 'enable' the optimisations in WinDVD. There must be a setting. Did you check that? (I don't think its going to make much diff. with a DIvx though as I mentioned before.)

However, look at this:
I went over Vans C7 testing again and something is definately wrong.
You are seeing at least 17watts power drain. (1.5 hours from a 26watt/hr battery)
In Vans tests, using his OpenSourceMark maxpowerdraw he saw only 15watts drain from a 1.5Ghz C7-M ULV on a laptop with a 12" screen. (3.2 hours from a 49watt/hr battery) There's no way an Eo should be drawing more power than a bigger laptop. I'm getting very supicious of your battery at this stage!! How do we test the battery capacity?!!

Steve.

It's not just my battery. I have checked my result with others and they are getting the same 1.5 hours figure.

Ok, played a VOB file. CPU around 55%. WindVd set to use hardware acceleration and using as much memory as it can use.

Check the link posted a few messages ago and you will see that the problem seems to me is the C3 time.

This is the link I'm talking about. Compare the charts from there with the one I posted here and You will noticed the huge difference.

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2693

Here is another good source of info on this topic.

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/14/microsoft_to_release_patch_for_power_drain_bug/page4.html

It could be the battery. You all have the same batch of devices but lets check the other stuff first.

1 - You shoulnd't see 55% CPU with an MPEG-2 file. Van was using PowerDVD 6 for his test. If you have time, theres a free trail available. From VANs testing:

Quote:

[edit: Just noticed he's talking about the PN800 there. Now checking to see what the difference is....]
[edit: It looks like only a difference in bus types. GPU seems to be the same.]

2 - Although C3 states is an issue at idle and needs to be resolved, it doesn't come into the equation when playing video that the CPU has to decode. (Did you check for C2 and C1 states?)

3 - I don't believe an Eo should drain 26W/hr of battery in 1.5 hours. (18w load). VAN got 3.2 hours from a 49W/hr battery under full load on a 1.5ghz VIA with 12" LCD panel!!

You could connect an ampmeter in-line on one of the battery connectors to check this. You should see about 1.75A current flow. If it's a lot less than this then there's some battery issues. Possibilities are that the battery is detecting low-capacity too early. The PC is shutting down too early. Or the battery is not really a 26w/hr device.

Oh what fun!

Steve.

When playing a VOB the CPU goes up and down from 400 to 100 staying more time in 400. I'll try to test PowerDVD but remember that I got the same time while browsing the Web ;)

Yeah. That worries me even more!!!

Someone suggested turning off the USB bus altogether from BIOS and re-testing to see if you can reach C3 states (in idle)

Jtokash got some interesting results with PowerDVD. He got 47% util but saw some C2 states. He didnt have time to check the CPU clockrate. Its possible it had dropped to 400mhz which would be a good sign.

Steve.

I also can see some C2 what I cannot see is any C3 .

PowerDVD media is 45% (CPU Utilization) boil it's very "choppy" (skip frames or stops video very often)

is the PC running at 400mhz now?

[edit: one note - enable hardware decoding in PowerDVD. Apparently its greyed out on first run.]

If so, we've proved that at least the MPEG2 decoder works.

Next stage is to try and get C2/C3 working when idle (suggest disbling USB from bios if possible)
And then measure current drain from battery.

No C3 state in idle is very bad and needs to be dealt with by Tablet Kiosk.
Might need BIOS upgrade.

I have to go to bed now. Will catch up in the morning.

S.