i3bar power conumption [closed]

asked Apr 9 '14

Anonymous

Hi, first thanks for the great window manager!!! I currently use Archlinux

core/linux 3.13.8-1 (base)

with

community/i3-wm 4.7.2-1 (i3)
community/i3lock 2.5-2 (i3)
community/i3status 2.8-2 (i3)

and

community/powertop 2.5-1

Running powertop, I noticed that i3bar consumes a lot of power

Power est.              Usage       Events/s    Category       Description
 2.68 W    120.2 µs/s      40.0        Process        i3bar --bar_id=bar-0 --socket=/run/user/1000/i3/ipc-socket.1029

This is even more than chromium does most of the time. Is that just a bug in powertop, or does i3bar really consume that much power, and if that's the case: how can I lower the power consumption. Currently my i3status intervall is 1 sec.

Here is my ~/i3status.conf

# i3status configuration file.
# see "man i3status" for documentation.

# It is important that this file is edited as UTF-8.
# The following line should contain a sharp s:
# ß
# If the above line is not correctly displayed, fix your editor first!

general {
    colors = true
        interval = 1
}

order += "ipv6"
order += "disk /"
order += "disk /boot"
order += "wireless wlp3s0"
order += "ethernet ens9"
order += "battery 0"
order += "load"
order += "volume master"
order += "tztime berlin"
order += "tztime local"
order += "tztime date_local"

volume master {
    format = "♪: %volume"
        device = "hw:PCH"
}

wireless wlp3s0 {
    format_up = "W: (%quality at %essid) %ip"
        format_down = "W: down"
}

ethernet ens9 {
# if you use %speed, i3status requires root privileges
    format_up = "E: %ip (%speed)"
        format_down = "E: down"
}

battery 0 {
    format = "%status %percentage %remaining"
}

run_watch DHCP {
    pidfile = "/var/run/dhclient*.pid"
}

run_watch VPN {
    pidfile = "/var/run/vpnc/pid"
}

tztime berlin {
    format = "%H:%M %Z"
    timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
}

tztime local {
    format = "%H:%M:%S %Z"
}

tztime date_local {
    format = "%Y-%m-%d"
}

load {
    format = "%1min"
}

disk "/" {
    format = "%avail"
}

disk "/boot" {
    format = "%avail"
}

I run i3 on a laptop and power consumption is an issue for me. Just let me know if you need any additional information. Thanks for any advice. Maximilian