Optimizing Guide

This page is intended to help tune TLP individually to achieve additional battery runtime or better performance on AC if possible.

Rationale: TLP’s default settings should save as much energy on battery power as possible (and of course not cost any performance on AC), but in reality there are limits to what can be done:

  • For simplicity, TLP’s settings are limited to a single set for AC and battery respectively, the same applies to the defaults

  • User requirements can vary greatly, there is no way to cover them all within defaults

  • Defaults must not cause problems with common hardware

Therefore TLP’s defaults can not achieve the maximum savings for any hardware and use case. It may be necessary to make adjustments yourself to get the optimum out of it.

Note

  • TLP’s parameters must always be specified pairwise for AC and BAT respectively. Therefore both parameters are listed below, the one to be changed is highlighted.

  • Please activate and test the following suggestions individually if possible. This way, any problems that may occur will stand out immediately.

  • If adjusting the settings does not yield the desired results, it may be worthwhile to experiment with a more recent kernel.

Extend battery runtime

  1. Change CPU energy/performance policy to power (default is balance_power):

CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_AC=balance_performance
CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_BAT=power

  1. Enable the platform profile low-power:

PLATFORM_PROFILE_ON_AC=balanced
PLATFORM_PROFILE_ON_BAT=low-power

  1. Disable turbo boost:

CPU_BOOST_ON_AC=1
CPU_BOOST_ON_BAT=0

CPU_HWP_DYN_BOOST_ON_AC=1
CPU_HWP_DYN_BOOST_ON_BAT=0

Improve performance on AC power

  1. Change CPU energy/performance policy to performance (default is balance_performance):

CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_AC=performance
CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_BAT=balance_power

  1. Enable the platform profile performance:

PLATFORM_PROFILE_ON_AC=performance
PLATFORM_PROFILE_ON_BAT=balanced

Reduce power consumption / fan noise on AC power

  1. Enable runtime power management:

RUNTIME_PM_ON_AC=auto
RUNTIME_PM_ON_BAT=auto

  1. Change CPU energy/performance policy to balance_power (default is balance_performance):

CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_AC=balance_power
CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_BAT=balance_power

  1. Enable Wi-Fi power save (default is off):

WIFI_PWR_ON_AC=on
WIFI_PWR_ON_BAT=on

See also

Missing hardware video acceleration and hybrid graphics are other common causes of high fan speed and elevated power dissipation. There is more about these topics in the FAQ: Power Consumption.

Limit power consumption under high CPU load

9. The intel_pstate scaling driver offers this possibility. Employ the settings

CPU_MAX_PERF_ON_AC=nn
CPU_MAX_PERF_ON_BAT=nn

with nn < 100 to achieve it.

Note

  • Check the output of tlp-stat -p to determine the active scaling driver

  • This will not limit the power consumption of the GPU (neither for integrated nor for discrete graphics)

Improve performance on battery power

  1. In case Intel Core i 12th gen. refuses to activate turbo boost on battery you can change the CPU energy/performance policy:

CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_AC=balance_performance
CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_BAT=balance_performance

See also