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Saving laptop battery
- Thread starter nertil1
- Start date
If I really need the extra runtime I'll:
1. Set the display brightness as low as possible (makes the biggest difference)
2. Avoid using programs that require a lot of CPU cycles, including games
3. Turn off the wireless
4. Set the power management software to reduce the CPU speed as much as possible.
5. Don't use any external devices (mouse, keyboards, flash drives etc.)
6. Don't use CD-rom/DVD drives.
Basically that's it.
Having more ram can help battery life in some cases because it stops the hard drive from swapping (especially on systems with less than 256mb of memory).
1. Set the display brightness as low as possible (makes the biggest difference)
2. Avoid using programs that require a lot of CPU cycles, including games
3. Turn off the wireless
4. Set the power management software to reduce the CPU speed as much as possible.
5. Don't use any external devices (mouse, keyboards, flash drives etc.)
6. Don't use CD-rom/DVD drives.
Basically that's it.
Having more ram can help battery life in some cases because it stops the hard drive from swapping (especially on systems with less than 256mb of memory).
viper11885
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2002
- Messages
- 1,958
Canon said:If I really need the extra runtime I'll:
1. Set the display brightness as low as possible (makes the biggest difference)
2. Avoid using programs that require a lot of CPU cycles, including games
3. Turn off the wireless
4. Set the power management software to reduce the CPU speed as much as possible.
5. Don't use any external devices (mouse, keyboards, flash drives etc.)
6. Don't use CD-rom/DVD drives.
Basically that's it.
Having more ram can help battery life in some cases because it stops the hard drive from swapping (especially on systems with less than 256mb of memory).
That's good stuff!
One thing to add, also disable the infared port and bluetooth can save a bit of battery.
I believe you can downclock your gpu
Do you mean CPU and if so how exactly would I do that? Would that cause damage to the processor by lowering its speed?
No... He means GPU, as in your Graphics chip.nertil1 said:Do you mean CPU and if so how exactly would I do that? Would that cause damage to the processor by lowering its speed?
Not all graphics chips are capable of this but I know for sure that ATI chips are. It's activated by a setting in the advanced display properties called, "powerplay". I believe it can be done on Nvidia cards by using a, "Powernow" tab.
Personally i've experimented with this setting and I found it more of a pain than it's worth. Battery run times are marginally increased and if you can actually notice a visual slowdown in even 2D environments. I don't use it.
viper11885
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2002
- Messages
- 1,958
nertil1 said:What about underclocking your CPU? Would that help? Would it damage the processor and how would I go about doing it?
thanks
The newer laptops can downgrade the cpu speed to conserve battery power. In Control Panel > Power Options > Use the "Portable/Laptop" scheme. It should automatically scale down your cpu speed depending on your usage.
I use powerplay and it is set to only lower the settings when using batteries and sets it to max when pluged in. For my power profile usualy i have it set to emachines power profile so it acts like quiet&cool when pluged in and when useing battery it is set to lowest setting. Max battery or portable should be used if you do not have a setting like that. Max battery will turn the screen off after a short time of inactivity.
Pretty much any electronics inside is going to eat electricity. So if you want to get super anal, you could disable your nic, your sound card, any external ports (usb,ps2,printer,1394,etc), remove any pcmcia cards, etc. Of course all this might add you a couple minutes of battery time at max.
Another thing you can do is d/l software to adjust the way your hd operates. You can change things like how often the hd parks its heads. Now this will save battery, but it will make your hd louder. You will hear a lot of clicking because instead of keeping the heads active , the heads will keep parking and then starting back up again during normal usage. I personally made it so my hd never parks the heads because even under default settings it was kind of loud, and bothered me. Of course it isn't noticable unless the room is silent, and my laptop fan is never on so it was the loudest thing. It might not bother you at all. Either way you could try it out and maybe add a couple minutes of more battery life.
Another thing you can do is d/l software to adjust the way your hd operates. You can change things like how often the hd parks its heads. Now this will save battery, but it will make your hd louder. You will hear a lot of clicking because instead of keeping the heads active , the heads will keep parking and then starting back up again during normal usage. I personally made it so my hd never parks the heads because even under default settings it was kind of loud, and bothered me. Of course it isn't noticable unless the room is silent, and my laptop fan is never on so it was the loudest thing. It might not bother you at all. Either way you could try it out and maybe add a couple minutes of more battery life.