5 ms·
Unfortunately, these performance monitors can make the computer use more power, by waking up every second to update the display, and therefore preventing the co
by cesarb 3y ago
Unfortunately, these performance monitors can make the computer use more power, by waking up every second to update the display, and therefore preventing the computer from entering deeper idle states. It's the same reason the default on-screen clocks no longer shows seconds by default, and blinking text cursors often blink for only five seconds or so before becoming static: waking up every second to update the screen can be costly.
Of course, a performance monitor which updates less often can avoid that issue (for instance, atop by default updates every ten seconds), but most people who run these graphical performance monitors want second-by-second updates.
- ComputerGuru 3y agoDevelopers are being asked to use them. It doesn’t matter if developer machines use a bit more power to save magnitudes more over the lifetime of all client use of the resulting, more efficient, product.
- IshKebab 3y agoAre CPUs really staying asleep for more than a second when the screen is on? I doubt that.
- angrygoat 3y agoBack in 2009, Matthew Garrett measured a blinking cursor as costing 2W of power consumption. Presumably it'd be less of a big deal now, but it does show that UI updates on a low frequency can cost watts. https://lwn.net/Articles/317923/ https://lwn.net/Articles/317923/
- TylerE 3y agoComputers have come a long way. My M1 Studio only draws about 40-50w under heavy load (like, running AI models or a full screen 3D game).
- dist-epoch 3y agoWith modern CPUs and OSes most of the cores are parked most of the time. For example right now only 2 of my 16 cores are active.
- eviks 3y agoHas anyone actually measured the increase in power use between no use, 1 second, and 5 second updates? (also, some indicators are more costly)
- bayindirh 3y agoI have used iStat Menus for a couple of hours and it made a sizable dent on my battery life, so I uninstalled it right away. macOS is a bit sensitive about being woken up constantly. Maybe it won’t be a problem on a desktop machine, but running these on Mac laptops is not free. Note that iStat Menus have its own set of daemons it uses for keeping tabs on system usage. It doesn’t just hook to the kernel via interfaces and display stats.