I recently noticed a strange bug while using Chromium web browser in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal powered laptops and netbooks(Intel platform). There is an immediate spike in power usage whenever Chromium is running.

The way I found this out was even stranger. In our earlier Joli OS 1.2 review , I had mentioned about several performance related issues I faced with Ping-Eee OS , a netbook optimized version of Pinguy OS. One of the remedies recommended by the developers of Ping-Eee OS was to install and run Powertop, a tool to pin point applications that are consuming most power(only Intel platform is supported).





See above screenshot. Chromium browser is running and Powertop statistics show that power usage is around 7.9W. This was well above 8.0W on many instances. See above screenshot. Chromium browser is running and Powertop statistics show that power usage is around 7.9W. This was well above 8.0W on many instances.







Ending Chromium browser brings everything back to normal. Above screenshot is taken while Firefox 5.0 was running with same amount of tabs open. Power usage dropped to 5.6W and Wakeups-from-idle/second dropped to 380.0 from 1096.7. Ending Chromium browser brings everything back to normal. Above screenshot is taken while Firefox 5.0 was running with same amount of tabs open. Power usage dropped to 5.6W and Wakeups-from-idle/second dropped to 380.0 from 1096.7.



