What Power Plan do you use in your pc?

Discussion in 'polls' started by Sampei Nihira, Apr 17, 2023.

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What Power Plan do you use in your pc?

  1. Power saver

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  2. Balanced

    15 vote(s)
    55.6%
  3. High Performance

    5 vote(s)
    18.5%
  4. Ultimate Performance

    3 vote(s)
    11.1%
  5. Other (please specify)

    4 vote(s)
    14.8%
  1. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    I use Process Lasso, so it depends on whether I'm using my machine or not.

    At some point it gets set back to Balanced though, probably by Windows.
     
  2. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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  3. pegas

    pegas Registered Member

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    On mine too.
     
  4. SouthPark

    SouthPark Registered Member

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    Balanced, which gives me about 7 hr. on my old Acer with a SSD (compared to 3 hr. with the original HDD). The battery charges to 87% of orig. capacity after 7 years.
     
  5. roger_m

    roger_m Registered Member

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    Have you run a test which shows that battery has 7% of the original capacity, or does it only charge to 87%.
     
  6. reasonablePrivacy

    reasonablePrivacy Registered Member

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    Some default:
    Code:
    root@xyz:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_driver
    intel_cpufreq
    root@xyz:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
    schedutil
    Fun things: on Linux laptop performance governor may, in some situations, provide better battery life than ondemand.
    On Windows laptop balanced sometimes gives better performance than high performance in games, because high performance quicker leads to hardware-controller CPU throtling.
     
  7. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    That is true, but keep in mind that most gamers would most likely already be using various techniques to keep the heat buildup to a minimum.

    For example, I have ultimate performance mode enabled, but during normal use, I always keep my laptop's rear end raised above the table. This not only keeps the laptop cool, but also puts the keyboard in a perfect angle to type.

    And when I game, I add a small table fan too the mix, pointed at the rear of the laptop, blowing air from one side. With the laptop already raised from the rear, this does an excellent job in whisking away the heat, preventing my laptop from ever reaching a heat level where it needs throttling.
     
  8. reasonablePrivacy

    reasonablePrivacy Registered Member

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    @Raza0007 it certainly depends on laptop model etc too
    For my friend additional pad with external fan didn't helped. What helped was slight manual decrease in max CPU performance somewhere 90-98%, I dont recall exact value
     
  9. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    Laptop cooling pads have never worked for me as well. I use a small table fan, it does a much better job of blowing the heat away and keeping the entire Laptop's chassis cool.
     
  10. plat

    plat Registered Member

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    OK, I followed an online guide b/c there was no "ultimate performance" option so I had to use cmd to get it. Doesn't do much subjectively on here. But I'll give it a try next time I run some benchmarks that involve the cpu. :) But otherwise, it's still the Balanced power plan.
     
  11. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    I mentioned earlier that I am not an expert in Power Plans, but after writing my initial post, I was able to do some research in this area.

    I believe one of the most important difference between the plans is the "Processor Power Management" options that includes the core parking engine, performance state engine and platform specific controls. See the following link:

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/power-settings/configure-processor-power-management-options

    So lets take the "CPMaxcores" options from the above page as an example.

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/power-settings/options-for-core-parking-cpmaxcores

    This options tells the OS the maximum number of cores that can be in an un-parked state at the same time. The setting depends on the power plan in operation. So lets suppose the power plan you have selected has a setting of 80 for CPMaxcores, and you have a 10 core CPU. That means Windows will not allow more than 8 cores to come online at the same time. Thus the power plan is actually restricting performance to save some battery power, which defeats the purpose of buying a 10 core machine.

    By the way, this particular CPMaxcores setting has been depreciated and Windows now allows the processor logic to control the number of cores that are parked or un-parked. I could not find the exact date when this option was depreciated, but it was included with Windows 10, and before being deprecated it was in operation. Not to mention the fact that it was in operation in Windows 8.1/8 and 7.

    There are others options under PPM that are still in effect, and by choosing a lower power plan, one might be unintentionally preventing one's PC from reaching its full potential.

    Also OEM's can configure their own power plans, and name them with an alias to masquerade as one of the Windows built-in power plans, so be careful about them. See this link

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/power-settings/configure-power-settings?source=recommendations

    So even though one may not notice an immediate difference between the plans, the link I quoted in my post#18 from Microsoft clearly states that the developers designed the ultimate performance plan to extract maximum performance from the PC. They consider it to be higher than the high performance plan. It is meant for running demanding workloads, and is meant for those who want absolute maximum performance out of their PC's. Since I fall in this category, I choose the ultimate performance plan.
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2023
  12. Sampei Nihira

    Sampei Nihira Registered Member

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    :thumb: +1
     
  13. Rmus

    Rmus Exploit Analyst

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    Other: "dynabook standard"

    Basically a balanced power plan for dynabook PCs
     
  14. SouthPark

    SouthPark Registered Member

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    I used Nirsoft's Battery Info View. The battery "health" is 87.8%
    New0000.jpg
     
  15. roger_m

    roger_m Registered Member

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    That looks like a useful tool.
     
  16. plat

    plat Registered Member

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    Wow, thanks very much for this tutorial. :thumb: For one thing, didn't know there was a Game Profile--surely this makes things a LOT easier to configure.

    One of the reasons why I shy away from running High/Ultimate Performance full-time is the heat generated (my machine is a little over one foot away from my chair w/exhaust facing my desk) and consequently, the electric bill gets a little gnarly.

    I have to figure out a better internal cooling arrangement--things go down fully 9-10 deg C if I take the glass side-panel off. But that's not feasible for a long-term solution. It's a normal-sized case but the gpu is a large chonk in there and the fans don't kick in until 65 deg C, which is my preference. :cautious:
     
  17. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    You are welcome. I wish I knew the individual detailed settings for each power plan, but that information is either not available online, or is very hard to find.

    That seems like a good idea. You should always use the power plan that works for you. If a higher power plan is generating too much heat, then it is not recommended at all, as too much heat will shorten the life span of the individual components in your PC.
     
  18. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    Since both of you are using Windows, the built-in "powercfg /batteryreport" command is very useful. It does not have a nice GUI, but generates a fairly readable HTML report. Important items in the report are "Usage History" and "Battery Capacity History". It generates a weekly history of both for over a year, and it is useful to see trends like how much capacity your battery loses per week, and you can correlate it with the usage history for that time frame.

    Command Prompt (Admin)
    cd C:\
    powercfg /batteryreport

    This will generate a "battery-report.html" file in your root C drive.
     
  19. roger_m

    roger_m Registered Member

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    It is useful and I was already aware of it. It's nice to have a GUI option too.
     
  20. SouthPark

    SouthPark Registered Member

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    Thanks -- I didn't know about that.
     
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