Vista power management settings

From the window shown above click Change advanced power settings which will open a window similar to the one shown below.

To change a setting that is grayed out, click Change settings that are currently unavailable. Most of the advanced settings are described in the following list. As noted above, the settings are listed as pairs, consisting of an On battery setting and a Plugged in setting. These settings may vary over time, and new ones may appear, as newer versions of Vista are released and pre-installed by Toshiba, and as Service Packs for Vista are installed.

If the sound of the CPU fan seems too loud, a setting that optimizes battery life will also cause the CPU fan to turn on less frequently. Setting a lower timeout value will save more power. Once the hard disk has been turned off, there will be a slight delay when it is next accessed, as it 'spins up' to full rotational speed.

Software that runs automatically 'in the background' search indexing, for example may prevent the drive from being turned off, by accessing it at frequent intervals. If your Wi-Fi connection is unstable or slow, try selecting a higher-performance setting. A short timeout interval can save lots of power if you frequently stop using the computer, without turning it off. Sleep mode preserves the state of open programs and documents by continuing to refresh the computer's memory, while turning off the screen, the hard disk drive, and most of the computer's other components.

When the computer is brought out of Sleep mode, the programs and documents re-appear, just as they were when the computer entered Sleep mode. Waking the computer from Sleep mode is much faster than starting the computer, starting the operating system, launching programs, and opening documents.

Save open documents frequently to protect them from loss of battery charge during Sleep mode. Sleep mode consumes some power from the battery, though far less than the normal On state. If the computer is in Sleep mode while being powered from the battery, and the battery charge runs low, the computer will turn completely Off, and will lose the open programs and documents in memory.

In this case, any changes to documents that were not yet saved to disk would be lost. Hybrid Sleep mode not only saves the state of open programs and documents in the computer's memory, it also saves their state to the hard disk drive as with Hibernation mode.

Many users will use the default Balanced plan. However, users can easily switch among plans and also change settings for a plan. Power management settings can change during an application session. Your application can be notified when settings change. For more information about power management interfaces, see The Power-Aware Application. Send comments about this topic to Microsoft. Skip to main content. This browser is no longer supported.

When running on battery, laptops and Tablet PCs continue to use battery power in the sleep state, but at a very low rate. If the battery runs low on power while the computer is in the sleep state, the current working environment is saved to the hard disk and then the computer is shut down completely.

This final state is similar to the hibernate state used with Windows XP. When a computer goes into hibernation, a snapshot of the user workspace and the current operating environment is taken by writing the current memory to disk.

When a user turns the computer back on, reading the memory from disk restores the user workspace and operating environment. In Windows Vista, this setting isn't normally used because the standard configuration is to sleep after a period of inactivity. Use a specific value in minutes to determine how long the computer must be inactive before the computer hibernates.

If you set this option to Do Not Query Applications And Services, applications and services with active processes do not prevent the computer from entering sleep mode. If you set this option to Query Applications And Services, applications and services with active processes can prevent the computer from entering sleep mode.

You can set this option to Sleep, Hibernate, or Shutdown. Use this setting to override the computer's default action. You cannot, however, use an option that is not supported by the computer. To save power and reduce energy consumption, lower the permitted minimum performance state.

But you lower the performance state at a direct cost to responsiveness and computational speed. To save power and reduce energy consumption, lower the permitted maximum performance state. Although reducing the maximum processing power to 50 percent or below can cause a significant reduction in performance and responsiveness, it can also provide a significant power savings.

Use a specific value in minutes to determine how long the computer must be inactive before the display is turned off. You can set this option to On or Off.

If you set this option to Take No Action, the computer can enter sleep mode after an appropriate period of inactivity regardless of whether media is being shared with other computers or devices. As you can see, the advanced power settings control every facet of power management. The differences in the advanced settings are what really set the power plans apart from each other. For example, while the High Performance plan ensures performance by allowing the computer's processor to always run at percent power consumption, the Power Saver plan reduces energy consumption by configuring the processor to use a minimum power consumption rate of 5 percent and a maximum rate of 50 percent.

The Balanced plan, on the other hand, configures the processor to use a minimum power consumption rate of 0 percent and a maximum rate of percent. When configuring power plans, it is important to allow components to turn off after periods of inactivity. Turning off components separately enables a computer to progressively go into sleep mode. When a computer is fully in sleep mode, all power-manageable computers are switched off so that the laptop uses less power.

When the computer is brought out of sleep mode, the components, such as the monitor and hard disks, are turned back on, restoring the user workspace. You should configure sleep mode so that when a laptop is running on batteries, it goes into power conservation mode when the user is away from the laptop for a relatively short period of time, such as 20 or 30 minutes. Because a computer can have multiple power plans, each plan can be optimized for the way a laptop is used at a particular time.

You can configure multiple power plans for different situations. At home or in the office, laptops might need different power management configurations than they do when users are giving presentations. In one case, you might want to configure the laptop to quickly conserve energy when running on batteries. In another case, you might want to ensure that the laptop never turns off its hard disk or wireless adapters.

Although computers can have multiple power plans, only one can be active at any given time. To select or optimize a power plan, follow these steps:. As shown in Figure 1 , you can specify the power plan to use by selecting it in the Preferred Plans list. Figure 1: Choose a power plan. Click Change Plan Settings for the plan you want to work with.

This displays the Edit Plan Settings page, shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: Configure power plan settings. Use the Turn Off Display list to specify whether or when the computer's display automatically turns off. Choose Never to disable this feature.

Use the Put Computer To Sleep list to specify whether or when the computer automatically enters sleep mode. If you want to configure advanced options, click Change Advanced Power Settings. Use the settings in the Power Options dialog box, shown in Figure 3 , to configure the advanced settings.

Click OK. Figure 3: Use the Power Options dialog box to configure advanced power options. In addition to the preferred power plans included with Windows Vista, you can create power plans as needed. To create a power plan, follow these steps:. In the left pane, click Create A Plan. Figure 4: Create a power plan. To prepopulate the power plan settings, select the preferred power plan that is closest to the type of plan you want to create.

In the Plan Name field, type a descriptive name for the plan and then click Next. This displays the Edit Plan Settings page.

Click Create to create the plan. The Power Options page is displayed with updates to include the plan you created as a new preferred plan that replaces the plan you selected while creating the plan.

You'll find the original preferred plan under Additional Plans. Click the Expand button on the right to display the plan. The plan you created is selected by default. After you configure the advanced power options as appropriate, click OK and then click Save Changes to save any changes you've made.

System-wide settings for power options enable you to customize the way the power button and password protection on wake works. You can configure the power button so that when it is pressed, the system shuts down, hibernates, or enters sleep mode.

You can configure the computer so that when it wakes from sleep, a password is either required or not required to unlock the screen.