Power saver Power plan
Power save tutorials
Click the links to learn how to activate the Power saver plan:
What is a power plan?
With ever increasing energy bills, it is worth spending some time understanding Windows 7 Power Plans to save energy by reducing your computer’s performance where possible.
A power plan is a collection of hardware and system settings that manages how your computer uses power. Power plans can help you save energy, maximize system performance, or achieve a balance between the two.
You can change settings for any of your power plans, including the three default plans—Balanced, Power saver, and High performance. The default plans meet most people's computing needs. If these plans don't suit your needs, you can easily create your own plan by using one of the default plans as a starting point.
You can use power plans to reduce the amount of power your computer uses, maximize performance, or balance the two.
Which power plans are available?
Windows provides the following default plans to help you manage your computer's power:
• Balanced. Offers full performance when you need it and saves power during periods of inactivity.
• Power saver. Saves power by reducing system performance. This plan can help mobile PC users get the most from a single battery charge.
• High performance. Maximizes system performance and responsiveness. Mobile PC users might notice that their battery doesn't last as long when using this plan.
Your computer manufacturer might provide additional power plans.
Power saver plan
Essentially, the Power saver power plan reduces the energy used by your computer system. The most obvious difference is that it will turn off the display and put the computer to sleep sooner than the 'Balanced' or 'High performance' plans.
It will also reduce energy usage by reducing system performance in other ways. For most applications, you will probably not notice any difference. If you do notice an unwanted reduction in performance, you can select the Balanced plan.
Power saver plan or Balanced plan
You may find that the Power saver plan reduces performance in areas that are not suited to the way to use the computer. If you find this is the case, you can select the 'Balanced' power plan but reduce the default times for turning off the display and putting the computer to sleep to five and fifteeen minutes respectively.
Note: Your user rights, restrictions imposed by your system administrator or your computer’s hardware configuration, might limit which settings you can change. If your computer is part of a network at an organization—such as a school or business—your organization’s system administrator might have disabled or even removed certain settings by using Group Policy.
Also, it is wisest not to change any settings you do not fully understand.
