Disable extra services to save power

posted Apr 24, 2016, 1:43 PM by Chris G [ updated Apr 24, 2016, 2:06 PM ]

Out of the box, the Raspberry Pi is designed with power efficiency in mind. But there are a few things you can do to make it even more efficient, especially if you run in "headless mode" without the need of a monitor.

First, you can disable the HDMI port, which will save about 25mA. To do so, edit the file:


/usr/bin/tvservice -o

You can use -p to re-enable this is needed. If you want to apply this change after every reboot, add that same line in the following file:

/etc/rc.local

To save even more, you can also turn off the bright red PWR LED and the ACT activity LED.

If you want to disable both LEDs after every reboot, edit the following file:


sudo nano /boot/config.txt

and add the following:


# Disable the ACT LED.
dtparam=act_led_trigger=none
dtparam=act_led_activelow=off

# Disable the PWR LED.
dtparam=pwr_led_trigger=none
dtparam=pwr_led_activelow=off

Save, and reboot, and your Pi will now use little less power.