You can consider that you don't need to know about power management in Windows 7, but the next time you'll use a laptop, notebook or another device that uses Microsoft Windows 7 you will find this very useful. It is said that Windows 7 is designed to help your battery last longer by running fewer background activities and the processor does not work as hard as previous versions of Windows and it draws less power.
Windows 7 power plan
The basic power plan managements screen shows you which plan (Balanced, Power saver, High performance) you are running. It also shows a warning if you are not currently using the most efficient setting. This popup appears when you click on the Windows battery icon, along with the information presented when the mouse is hovered over the battery icon. Using this screen you can Select a power plan between these 2 options: balanced tries to find the best way to combine performace and power, the Power saver gives you the most battery life. As you can easily understand, High performance is running your computer with about no power saver at all: Windows 7 will turn of your monitor after 15 minutes of no moving the mouse or hitting any keys, but your computer will never go into sleep mode or standby.
Remember it's not an automatic select, you have to do it yourself every time you plug in and unplug your laptop if you want maximum efficiency.
Advanced power settings
To get to power options you click on Start > Control Panel > Power Options. From that menu you can select from any existing power plans or you can create your own. You can change the settings for the preffered power plan for the period until Windows 7 will turn of the display and put your computer to sleep.
In order to get to Advanced power settings click on the "Change advanced setting", it will bring you Advanced Setting dialogue box. The list from this box contains a number of customizable components to your current power plants, you can select any of the items in the list by clicking on "+" symbol.
Power saver
It indicates the current power plan, the one you are going to customize. It contains an important option: Require a Password on Wakeup, designed to increase security on your computer. Recommended setting: yes.
Hard disk
Turn off all the fixed hard disk in your computer after a period of time.
Desktop background settings
This indicates whether the desktop slide show is available or it pauses it so it will not start up. Recommended setting: available.
Wireless adapter mode
It controls is set your wireless adapter. The default is maximul performance, but you can save power by setthing the option to a lower setting. Recommended setting: maximum performance.
Sleep
It controls 4 options of sleep:
- the sleep after determines how much inactivity is necessary to set your computer into sleep mode
- allow hybrid sleep turns this option off
- hibernate after determines how much inactivity is necessary to set your computer into hibernate mode
- allow wake timer determines whethever wake timers are enabled or disabled
USB settings
Sometimes USB can affect sleep mode because they draw power through the port, it can fool Windows into thinking the device is active. In such case the operating system will suspend sleep mode. The option determines when selective suspend is used or not to turn off USB devices. Recommended setting: enabled.
Power buttons and lid
The option determines what action Windows will take then the you push the power button located on the front of your computer case. There are 3 choices: shut down (default option), do nothing and hibernate.
PCI express
Video cards can interfere with Windows sleep mode because they send information to a monitor almost all the time, they likely uses a PCI express form factor. The default setting is Moderate Power Saving, but you can also choose Maximum Power Savings or Off.
Processor power management
It controls the System Cooling Policy of your computer.
Display
It determines how much inactivity is necessary before Windows 7 turns off your monitor.
Multimedia settings
There are 2 settings:
- when sharing media determines whether and how your computer will enter sleep mode when you are sharing media
- when playing video determines your computer will consume the power it needs to deliver the best video experience
