which power setting for my laptop

movingtables · 17 Jun 2007 at 12:14

...would give me the best performance while using battery power?
not bothered about it running out quicker.

stoofa · 17 Jun 2007 at 12:22

I'm going out on a limb on this one...
"Maximum Performance" maybe...

movingtables · 17 Jun 2007 at 12:25

stoofa said:
I'm going out on a limb on this one...
"Maximum Performance" maybe...

thanks i know it seemed a little obvious but i wanted to make sure
that "always on" didnt offer more.

thanks again

TheVoice · 17 Jun 2007 at 12:26

Maximum performance will stop the CPU from reducing speed when idle, whereas Minimal Power Management or Portable/Laptop will allow it to reduce speed. There's no reason not to use the latter though, really - if a program puts heavy load onto the CPU it'll automatically go to full speed anyway, so there's no practical performance increase from using Maximum Performance or any of the others.

movingtables · 17 Jun 2007 at 12:29

TheVoice said:
Maximum performance will stop the CPU from reducing speed when idle, whereas Minimal Power Management or Portable/Laptop will allow it to reduce speed. There's no reason not to use the latter though, really - if a program puts heavy load onto the CPU it'll automatically go to full speed anyway, so there's no practical performance increase from using Maximum Performance or any of the others.

ah very interesting i will select "laptop" then and see how it goes.
thanks

ps- just out of interest when watch a DVD or playing a game i wont loose perfomace?

TheVoice · 17 Jun 2007 at 12:32

You shouldn't lose performance, no. What'll happen is that when the laptop is doing nothing (idling) or just running undemanding programs, the CPU will clock down to a fraction of its 'normal' speed. If you then run something demanding, like a game or something CPU intensive, it'll automatically go straight to full-speed, so you're getting full performance when needed. The advantage is that when you don't need full-speed, it clocks down and so saves you power, as well as reducing heat output.

movingtables · 17 Jun 2007 at 12:35

TheVoice said:
You shouldn't lose performance, no. What'll happen is that when the laptop is doing nothing (idling) or just running undemanding programs, the CPU will clock down to a fraction of its 'normal' speed. If you then run something demanding, like a game or something CPU intensive, it'll automatically go straight to full-speed, so you're getting full performance when needed. The advantage is that when you don't need full-speed, it clocks down and so saves you power, as well as reducing heat output.

fantastic. i normaly get 3 hours on my 6 cell battery.

im guessing surfing isnt that intensive so i may squeez some more battery time out now.

thanks for the help Gents.....