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Power manager T61 v NHC v RMClock ?

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 2:44 pm
by icantux
Out of curiosity. Is NHC all that much better than Lenovo's Power Manager?

Here's the issue. I downloaded and installed NHC 2...pre06 running on XP SP2 and it's not bad but a couple of thing's have me totally stumped here...
When I select "Dynamic switching" in NHC the CPU speed just remains at 2.49 GHz in the taskbar. (I have the T9300 2.5GHz in my T61). It seems there's no difference at all - the CPU's running full blast all the time. The fan kicks in much more often than it did before I installed NHC as well!

Second thing I notice is that I hear my HDD more than before - it seems to run louder than it did before installing NHC.

Is this normal? I've tried switching profiles and rebooting but there's no apparent change.

Additionally, I find that when I disconnect the power, the computer stays on the "powered- on" profile instead of switching to battery optimized, so it doesn't distinguish when I'm running the laptop on battery or if it's plugged in. Weird.

I dunno about this program. SpeedswitchXP seemed to work so much better, alas it doesn't support 2CPUs so it's pretty much useless to me now. Is NHC still in the alpha stage or something? Seriously, it seems completely unresponsive and when I reboot, the settings are all reset for some reason.

Any ideas? Am I completely missing something with NHC, or is it better just to uninstall it completely and use Lenovo's Power Manager (which seems rather quite efficient!!)

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 3:10 pm
by gator
I remember having to install a patch for the core duo version of NHC when I installed it loong back ... you might want to check that up. If I have time I'll check and update this post later.

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 5:40 pm
by aaa
I'm guessing NHC does not support the T9300, especially if the "May 2007" date on the site is true.

The beta version of RMClock supports it, but it is more complicated to use.

The main benefit of NHC & RMClock is undervolting, if you don't figure out how to do it then you're better off with the Lenovo software.

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 6:49 pm
by icantux
That explains it...

Thanks for the insight fellas. I was thinking that I picked up a bad copy of NHC or something. It's really too bad that there isn't something else out there that would give the user a simple means of setting the CPU(s) to "dynamic switching" (like the CPU throttling in linux) and showing that in the system tray. SpeedswitchXP used to do that (but that's good for 1CPU system only).

Ah well.

Thanks again.

Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:21 am
by Radioguy
I miss NHC since "upgrading" to Vista. I'd love to have it back, and with functionality.

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:42 am
by icantux
Just as an aside ... I've been researching my need for some little program that would allow me to control the power usage and CPU throttling more efficiently ...

I've found a utility called RMClock ... Through various testing, it performs admirably thus far, much more intuitive than NHC (not to knock it or anything) and offers plenty of methods to throttle the CPU dynamically. It works very efficiently and integrates well with the Lenovo Power Manager (the little green battery thingy). For instance, I've created some profiles in Power Manager, then I can use those from within RMClock. Works wonderfully for both CPU's on my Core 2 Duo.

Anyways, just thought I'd share.

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:02 am
by pae77
Could you share your RM Clock settings?

NHC

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:51 pm
by Mike1960
Hello

I have R61.
NHC don`t work for me. I can not change voltage. Why ?
Temp are CPU - 56, GPU - 63. Only I-explorer !!!


Thanks Mike

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:25 pm
by icantux
pae77 wrote:Could you share your RM Clock settings?
Sure ... I don't have access to my Thinkpad right now but I'll post the settings tomorrow.

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:40 pm
by icantux
OK,

I wrote up a little post with screenshots of RMClock, showing my settings, etc.. neat little program and works great with my Core2Duo processor. Using those settings I squeeze out about 3:48 out of my 6-cell battery. Not too shabby.

For anyone interested here's the link to my write-up (everything's explained there):

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=60698

Cheers