Re: Disabling wifi to save battery

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:44:57 +1100, Daniel Dalton wrote:

> I've recently purchased a Dell vostro 3350 laptop, and to save battery,
> I was planning to disable wifi, when it wasn't required. On my old
> laptop I could use the rfkill package like so: rfkill block wifi

Mmm, some wifi adapters also allow to put the card in power-saving mode, 
maybe you can save some "energy sparks" with that while having the wifi 
"on". 

Here are some tips:

http://www.lesswatts.org/tips/wireless.php

Another option could be disabling wifi and bluetooth adapter from BIOS 
(if this is available).

> But it seems to have no effect on my Dell. The wifi hot key on the
> laptop does not seem to work either (from the console). 

This is something to look about. 

Run "lsmod" to see all the modules that are currently loaded. My Compaq 
netbook loads "hp_wmi" which is in charge for controlling the ambient 
backlight, wifi, BT, hdd temperature sensors...) and maybe your dell 
needs something similar :-?

> Does anyone have any other ideas? If I do ifdown eth1 to bring down
> wifi, is it likely the wifi will still be consuming significant battery?

Bringing down the interface still leaves the adapter "on", so I guess 
there is no power-saving gain when doing this. 

Is the wifi card already configured and detected by the system?

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón