[Mageia-discuss] Why would runlevel 3 take more power?

[ed]

On 10/04/2011 08:39 PM, blind Pete wrote:
> on Mon, 3 Oct 2011 12:35
> in the Usenet newsgroup gmane.linux.mageia.user
> Norman Carver wrote:
>
>> Set up a new server for home use (DNS, files, etc.) and
>> was gratified to find it using around 50 watts when the
>> older machine it replaces was using around 90.
>> However, just before sticking it in the closet, I changed
>> it to runlevel 3 since I won't be using the GUI typically.
>> I had assumed this might reduce power usage a bit
>> more, but surprisingly it caused the power draw to go UP
>> by about 3 watts!  I thought it a fluke, but verified that
>> this is a real phenomenon:  the machine draws about
>> 3 watts less when X and KDE are running than when
>> they are not.  Seems like running more processes should
>> cause more power usage.  Any ideas what might be
>> causing what I see?  Odd.
>>
>> I note that:
>> (1) I set kernel scaling_governor parameter for
>> each core to ondemand for any runlevel;
>> (2) whether logged into KDE or just sitting at the
>> DM the power usage is stabilizes at the same level
>> when in runlevel 5;
>> (3) I have not made any power settings in KDE and
>> the power applet is not running;
>> (4) runlevel 5 has all the same services as runleve 5
>> plus: dm and atieventsd.
>>
>> Thanks for any insights!
>> Norm
> Can you measure the power consumption of the monitor
> separately?  Or anything else that is plugged into
> the system.  If you like mucking around for the fun
> of mucking around, try unplugging things.
>
post the output from [as root]
"diff /etc/rc.d/rc3.d /etc/rc.d/rc5.d"