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I got myself a new laptop, which is pretty powerful, but the battery life is horrible on both Windows and Linux. I was wondering if there is a way to increase battery life on Linux.

I already tried to use powertop and tlp, but it doesn't make much of a difference. Is there a way to disable cores and undervolt/clock the CPU? Will that save a significant amount of battery life?

It has both an integrated and discrete GPU and 4 core CPU. I was wondering if it was possible to disable 2 cores and the discrete GPU completely on Linux to improve the battery life, and perhaps underclock/undervolt it.

A step by step guide would be really appreciated, along with some explanation of what each command or program does.

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Check if perhaps the battery is shot. Old(ish) batteries lose their capacity.

Look for reviews of that specific machine. Perhaps "short battery life" is a common complaint?

A (not so cheap!) option could be to buy a replacement battery and lug that around too.

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  • Hi, unfortunately, the battery is brand new and it is a common complaint with the model, I knew this going in, but I just thought that maybe it was possible to squeeze some extra power by reducing the power drawn by the cpu.
    – user397449
    Commented Mar 3, 2020 at 17:45
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You can underclock the CPU with cpupower. e.g. If you want to set the maximum frequency to 1Ghz you can can use cpupower frequency-set -u 1Ghz.

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  • Thanks! Is there also a way to disable 2 cores out of the 4?
    – user397449
    Commented Mar 3, 2020 at 17:46

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