Bugzilla – Bug 7681
In 'Off' mode it uses 8 Watts, while playing it uses 9 Watts...
Last modified: 2009-09-08 09:15:01 UTC
It looks like some more work to the power saving features needs to be done... when its 'off' its using 8 watts of power, but when its 'on' and playing it only uses 1 more watt.
There is a little we can do here -- we can save about 600mW in the DSP, 600mW in the power amplifiers, and about 750mW by turning off the VFD (i.e. no clock, no display). That's about it. So, at best we'll be about 6 Watts. This is because of the fundamental architecture of the ip3k platform -- it's simply not designed for low power. Since this requires a change to the xilinx, to allow software control over the power amplifier's shutdown pins, I'll send the bug over to Sean. Then he can hand off to Felix when the xilinx code is done.
*** Bug 7817 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Sean: Did this change go in?
Ping. Is this going to be possible at this point or are we too late now?
There are multiple issues on this one. The PQP2 hardware, with a 12V power brick will save a couple watts. Turning off the display saves 1 watt. We don't turn off the power amps yet. That will save another .6 watts. I believe the current firmware turns the display entirely off when it's dark.
So, does this belong to sean to fix the power amp control now?
Amp power on/off should be ready to go, but I don't know what issues there might be with clicks and such, or what the correct sequence is. Ill talk to Caleb about it.
Did you talk to Caleb? Is this implemented now?
I was just thinking about this some more, and had a thought... Given that there's a definite chance that some suers will really not care if their Boom is connected to SC or SN when they're not actively using it, what about a firmware option that allows the 'Power' button to really control the power to the whole unit? Example, I've got my Boom as my clock/alarm/etc... so I definitely want it on all the time (though using as little power as possible)... Lets say I get Boom #2 and its in the kitchen. In the kitchen I don't care if its 'on' unless I'm actually using it. I'd like to hit 'Power' on it and have it literally go all the way to sleep (kill all network connections, shut down the processor, etc..). Only a press of the Power Button on the Boom or on the Remote would wake it up. That allows the user to define the behavior... Is that possible with our current layout?
Caleb are there further improvements that can be made? Thanks.
Sean was working on this. I told him the power up/down sequence. I don't know the status. Sean?
Ping sean...
Felix to bug sean abou tthis.
*** Bug 9306 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
felix: what's the status of this?
Shutting down the amp results in reduced power consumption (about 300mA vs. 390mA when on, both with display on) so that is good. Unfortunately shutting down the amp causes a slight popping sound too, which is not so good. (Also turning them back on is not without slight pop.) I also tried to first mute dsp, headphones and power amp, and also added small delays in between the calls, but all of that did not help eliminating the popping sound.
Too risky for 7.3 today...
Fixed in rev5256. Will be in SBB fw 42.
Targeting for next release
Fixed - Closed Message (SC) This bug has been fixed in the 7.3.3 release version of SqueezeCenter! Please download the new version from http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html if you haven't already. If you are still experiencing this problem, feel free to reopen the bug with your new comments and we'll have another look.
Correction: SqueezeCenter version is 7.3.2