Windows power management

T

Tarfu

n00b
Joined
Apr 9, 2003
Messages
20
Ok, I've got laptop with a pentium M 1.6 in it thats going into powersaving mode whenever I go fullscreen in a game. Basically its clocking itself down from 1.6 to 591 mhz.


Naturally this is unacceptible.


I tried going through dell with this but "registry editing isnt covered by our general software support" so they directed me to the hell desk and demanded $40.

I want one of two things if you guys can help:

A. The ability to set the processor to power saving mode at will. The power management schemes offer no option to control the CPU's power saving features.

B. The ability to just disable it. I can live with the shorter battery life.


Thanks in advance.


Edit: I forgot to mention the first thing I did when I got this thing was format the hard drive, create a smaller 20 gig partition and put linux on it. I have no such issues with the superior OS. This also removed dells proprietary crap polluting my hard drive, like the AOL free trial. All winblows drivers are current, SP2 in installed(XP home) and fully patched. Dude, Im not buying another dell. ;)

Full specs are:
(Dell Inspiron 8600)
Radeon 9600 mobility
512 ram
60gb hard drive
24xdvd/cdrw combo
Pentium M 1.6
 
There would normally be a driver installed on the system that can control the CPU power mode. If you removed the dell install, that driver is gone as well (I did the same thing to my toshiba, but in the end gave up and restored the initial setup they had). If you can't get that off the disk for some reason, orr of the Dell support site, then you can like disable it in the bios as was already mentioned.
 
The owner's manual doesn't seem to say whether you can set the power management options in the BIOS or not. Also, make sure you've installed the proper drivers for your unit, as noted in the post above.
 
most dell bios'es that i've seen will have some sort of power management option. turn that off.

in windows, look in the control panel for "power settings", and then see if there is another icon in the control panel with a similar name. if you see the similar name, then edit the power settings there.
if not, then goto the "power settings" icon in the control panel and check every single option. worse case scenario is that you may need to have it create a system tray icon (for your convenience) to quickly change the power settings to "full" before running the full screen game.


as for the toshiba user, toshiba does use a proprietary power management software. it has a system tray icon that looks like a light bulb, but will show different colors based on the power options chosen. you have to edit the power settings in that toshiba icon in the control panel (i think even double-clicking on the windows "power settings" icon posts a message saying to use toshiba's power management icon instead).
this same rule applies for changing the bios settings for the laptop (it's in an icon i think called "toshiba hardware", or something similar).

hope this helps.
 
Dells software is just their own version of the windows power management tool. All it does is create a taskbar icon to allow you to choose the windows profiles. I've already snopped around the bios and there were no options for the power stepping.

I found a nice little utility that seems to have solved it, called RightMark Cpu Clock Utility, Its nice because I just tell it what speed I want the CPU running at, which is basically what I was looking for.

Also, I used dell's OEM windows CD to reinstall as I assumed It would put all the drivers and shit back. Its a stock copy of XP thats set up to use a small 50 meg partition on the hard drive that contains the drivers and other junk.(oops, hehe)

They make it easy to get the drivers again, but I'm making it a point to avoid their outsourced tech support people.

Its difficult not losing my temper when I spend 5 minutes describing the problem, then have them say "Ok so your computer is running a little slow? Can you please tell me when it runs slowly, thankyou". These indian outsourcing firms could at least make it so that you dont hear their $2/hour employees fliping through the troubleshooting binder.

Next laptop im getting is gonna be a fragbook from falcon, im not putting up with large companies crap anymore.
 
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