tl;dr – source code is available on Github: auto-cpufreq

Recently I bought a new ThinkPad X1 Carbon. As with every new install, one of the first things I do is install TLP to improve battery life. However, soon afterwards, I realized when watching 4k content on Youtube laptop was starting to choke. Which was hard to come to terms with considering it’s running on an Intel i7 CPU.

After I started monitoring my resources, I realized that CPU was capped at 1800MHz. Then, tweaking my TLP config to make sure it allows “turbo boost” on AC, and after getting nowhere I’ve decided to just remove it.

Without TLP battery life wasn’t great, which lead to additional tweaking with indicator-cpufreq and cpufreq. But I wasn’t quite impressed by doing changes manually, and constant tweaking.

That’s how idea for auto-cpufreq (Automatic CPU speed & power optimizer for Linux) was born. Long story short, currently this is the tool I’m using on all of my laptops. With greatest battery savings yet, and without any compromises.

For more information see the auto-cpufreq Youtube demo and/or visit auto-cpufreq GitHub repo.

Happy hacking & if you found this useful, consider becoming my GitHub sponsor!