The new versions of Windows allow you to get great autonomy on laptops, thanks to the various innovations presented over time designed to bring laptops closer to the autonomy seen on MacBooks. On Windows 10 the energy management process has been simplified to the maximum, so that anyone can have full control over the amount of energy consumed by the computer at a given time; but for the most experienced and for those who own Windows 7, we will have to move between some menu items in order to better understand which energy saving options to use and which ones to disable.
In this guide we will show you all the energy saving options in Windows 7 and Windows 10 that we can adjust, so that even your laptop can get more than 4 hours of autonomy without having to use energy saving programs (completely useless) or without considering a battery change.
Energy options Windows 10
On Windows 10 we can check the energy saving by simply clicking on the battery icon in the bottom right; if we don't see any icon, we click on the arrowhead to look for any hidden battery icon.
We will have a selector, to be moved between the two extremes: Maximum battery life and Maximum performance .
If we are using the laptop with the battery, it is better to select the first item in order to obtain an increase in autonomy; if instead we are connected to the power supply, we select the second item to obtain greater speed and responsiveness from the laptop.
To obtain balanced settings, we place the selector in the center, so as to obtain a balanced profile between power and autonomy. By clicking on the Battery settings item, we will get other interesting options to activate the energy saving automatically (when the battery drops below a certain value) and we can reduce the brightness of the screen every time the energy saving is active.
Even from Windows 10 we can reach the old energy management menu by opening the Start menu, typing Energy and opening the Change energy saving combination menu item.
This menu is identical to the one available on Windows 7, so I refer you to reading the next chapter to understand how to use it.
NOTE: In Windows 10, however, there are two new options compared to Windows 7 dedicated to the battery of laptops, which we talked about in another article:
- Smart Battery Saver option
- Power limitation in battery saving mode
Energy options Windows 7
To access the Windows 7 energy saving plan, open the Start menu at the bottom left and look for Energy saving options, one of the Control Panel menus.
Windows 7 offers three predefined combinations for power supply: Balanced, Energy saving and high performance .
To see them all, you may need to click on " Show additional combinations ".
Depending on the laptop in use and the programs installed, there may also be other energy saving profiles.
You can also create your own combination of energy by clicking on the link in the left sidebar.
Each predefined plan can be modified by clicking on Change combination settings, present next to each profile.
In the window that opens we will be able to change the energy saving settings : time for deactivating the screen, time for dimming the screen and the time to suspend the computer.
The important, most interesting and also more complex part of this section is related to the Advanced options accessible by clicking on Change advanced energy saving settings .
In this window we can customize the behavior of each component of the computer regarding the use of energy. The options menu is divided into several items that can be expanded by clicking on the + and can be changed from a convenient multiple-choice menu.
The most interesting advanced options to modify are
- Hard disk : you can deactivate the hard disk after a certain period of time or you can set it to 0 to avoid deactivation. As seen in another post, to prevent external hard drives connected via USB from turning off, you must instead use an external program.
- Desktop background settings : it concerns the activation or not of the continuous and automatic change of the background in Windows 7 which, obviously, consumes energy.
- Wireless card settings : here you can choose between various energy saving modes: maximum performance, minimum, medium or maximum energy saving.
- Sleep : after a certain period of time, the PC goes into sleep mode and there are various modes. In hibernation, the computer does not shutdown completely and still uses full energy to power RAM and keep open data and programs in memory. Monitors and hard drives are turned off, but as soon as you touch the mouse, the computer wakes up.
- Hibernate allows the computer to shut down but first saves all the contents of the RAM on the hard disk. When you restart your computer, RAM is loaded from the hard disk so that you can continue working from where you left off. This will speed up the startup of Windows 7, while Fastboot is already running on Windows 10 and works identically.
- Hybrid hibernation is a mix between hibernation and hibernation: the computer enters sleep mode, but you can also set it to save RAM on the hard disk. This option is useful if you use the laptop powered by battery so, when it runs out or (even if it goes away during the suspension), the computer will restart as if it wakes up from normal suspension. Enabling the wake -up timer allows you to automatically wake up your PC from suspension or hibernation, to perform a scheduled operation such as backup.
- The USB settings are used to enable or disable selective suspension of USB ports. The selective suspension function of the USB ports allows the hub driver to suspend a single port without affecting the operation of the others. Selective suspension of USB ports is particularly useful in laptops to conserve battery power when connected devices are not in use.
- Power buttons and cover is used to configure what the PC should do if you close the lid of the laptop or if you press the shutdown button.
- PCI Express : it can be inactive or with moderate or maximum energy savings, to reduce the use of a dedicated video card (which consumes a lot of energy).
- Saving processor power is the option to adjust CPU performance to minimum or maximum and decide how to cool it. This option, in fact, allows you to underclock the CPU or lower the maximum level of the processor frequency in order to consume less (reducing performance).
- Screen : In addition to the basic display settings, you can lower the brightness of the screen.
- Battery : option present only on laptops to configure the automatic actions to be performed on the computer when the battery is running low.
In other articles I had written how to prevent suspensions and hibernations without changing these energy options and how you can turn the PC on faster using the automatic hibernation shutdown .
If, despite all the suggestions, the battery does not last as long as before, we recommend carrying out a battery calibration of the laptops for maximum charge .
