Power Management - Worth it?

[EAkamai]

Aloha! I am wondering if the Pwr Management software is worth the install. I've loaded the Pwr Mgt driver but not the Mgt app. Want to keep as little software installed as possible and keep it clean using little resources as possible. However, i've been reading where you can actually control the charge sequence of the battery with it and with the right settings, you can help the battery to last longer? This would be nice but -

Wondering how much resources it takes, and how stable the software is etc. T61 XP Pro SP2 custom install - rock solid so far... I put very little stock software on this. Mainly drivers and no extra stuff like the Intel wireless software etc. I believe the less software the better, install only what's necessary and i'm quite sure here on this amazing Forum i'm "preaching to the choir" about that.

So is it worth it? Stable? Conflict with anything? Newest version vs older release?

Thanks for your help in making this decision.

[dr_st]

Personally I like the Power Manager. It lets you control and change power schemes, battery charge thresholds, etc, and it also displays extensive information about the battery: discharge rate, global status (number of cycles, full charge capacity, etc). Its time remaining estimate also seems more accurate than Windows' built-in one, although of course you can only be so accurate, as power consumption changes on the fly.

However, I dislike the new versions of power manager (post 1.51 or 1.52 I think), with the new GUI. It seems needlessly bloated and heavy.

[yak]

Yes, Power Manager is one of the most useful ThinkVantage parts. It is quite reliable, I haven't had any crashes because of it. As dr_st said, it has a lot of useful features not found standard Windows power management.

My only complain is the new GUI which may look nice but is painfully slow. The old GUI was much better is this regard.

That being said, I learned to live with it. I have the battery thresholds set up, I've defined my custom power schemes and I don't need to open the main GUI that much.

I won't be switching to the old version because it had some problems on Vista which I'm currently using. Lenovo also released an updated version compatible with Windows 7 which means that on the 7, we will be forced to use the new one anyway.

I still hope they will make it more snappy some day...

[craigmontHunter]

I also find it useful as it controls the screen brightness, something windows does not do. There is a way in the new version to change it back to looking like the old version - choose advanced mode. This will not speed up it's launching, but it gives the advanced options without the sliders.

[Eudoxus]

I must agree to what is said in the previous posts. Power Manager is really worth thing to have if you want to have more control over power consumption on your system and longer battery life.
I agree with the point that the less software you have the better however sometimes it seems that people go th extreemes as if they were to run their CPUs and all other hardware manually.

[EAkamai]

Mahalo (er, Thank you very much) for all the responses and information!

I looked in my driver archive and i have ver's 1.22 and 1.60. 1.22 seems too old and don't know if 1.60 is newest. I've always wondered if older versions of the drivers/apps were available for downloading from Lenovo... But i did see in the Release Notes/History of ver. 1.60:
"[Problem fixes]
- Fixed an issue where the CPU usage became high."

That makes me think i need this one... or later? I'll check on their site later. In the meantime, are older versions of their software & drivers available for DL and if so, could someone point us in the right direction?

Thanks again for all the Great help!

[EAkamai]

Well i guess i missed this all this time... Not sure what we're discussing here. Am i looking at the "Power Manager" (latest is 1.60 and the one i thought i was referring to) or the "ACPI Power Management" (latest is 1.53)?

I can say that i've never installed the ACPI Power Management package. I believe i've thoroughly confused myself now...

[EAkamai]

Sorry to bump this everyone, but my confusion led me to more research and the following info and questions. I apologize for all the confusion (on my part) :

Info

1. I guess i DID install the ACPI driver as that is the only power management driver i see we downloaded and up on Lenovo drivers list. Duhhh. Sorry everyone.

2. Looked at many install guides for this model and didn't see any other power mgt driver listed except ACPI. Again I apologize for this oversight.

3. However, checking hidden devices i see this with a question mark: LTN141XA-L01 and checking details in properties it is listed as: "DISPLAY\LEN4020\4&DC91A8B&0&80861500&00&02" .

Questions:

1. What is this hidden device listed (above) and what does it need?
UPDATE: It appears to refer to the LCD monitor driver. Under Monitor in DevMgr i have listed (5) instances of Default Monitor and (2) instances of Thinkpad Display 1024x768. Why so many instances of monitors and why they keep coming back when i delete all? I've only seen this weirdness in 9x os's. I delete all including unknown hidden device but they all return.

2. On only one guide i see he installed the System Interface Driver. Since it's listed in "Utilities" section i thought we could do without? especially since most guides didn't list it. What does this do exactly?

3. Tried to access FTP site for older drivers but had no luck finding them their site is MASSIVE. Can someone list the main ftp link to these drivers if there is one? Otherwise, must i post at lenovo.com forum and ask for specific one i'm looking for?

4. How would i know if i need the Turbo Memory disabling tool? I've read where it isn't always necessary.

Thanks again for any help!

[EAkamai]

Sorry for all the different questions. Should i post these questions in a new thread? I really don't want to install the Pwr Manager until i can:

1. Find out what's up with the 5 instances of Default monitor in Dev Mgr. I suspect the 2 Thinkpad monitors is because of the 2 instances of the video card. Monitor inf was the latest available from Lenov's driver site. Maybe this is normal/by design since system is solid? Can anyone confirm this? After a whole lot of research i've only seen one other person that had this same issue but he had an X system. Didn't see any resolution or whether this is by design or not.

2. Related to no.1: Find out whats up with the hidden "Other device" referencing the LCD that i can't get rid of.

3. Find out if there are older Pwr Management packages available for DL so i have more choices.

As far as the other two questions, i don't believe i need turbo mem disabling package. Since system is solid and it is listed under "Utilities" i am going to ignore the SID package.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

P.S. Free surfing lessons in Hawai'i for anyone who can help

[craigmontHunter]

Old versions is generally under the support and downloads page, just go as far back as possible to find them.

I don't know what the system inferface driver does, but I have not found it to affect anything so I install it.

You only need the turbo memory disabling utility if you are finding that it is giving you performance issus or (i think) if you are going to install XP, which does not have support for it.

Good luck

[EAkamai]

Old versions is generally under the support and downloads page, just go as far back as possible to find them.

Thanks for the response! I don't see where you can dl anything but the latest. They have a nice history of the releases but i don't see what you are referring to. Did i somehow miss it? Could you send me a link to what you are referring to?

I don't know what the system inferface driver does, but I have not found it to affect anything so I install it.

Great! If it doesn't affect anything all the more reason to not install it

You only need the turbo memory disabling utility if you are finding that it is giving you performance issus or (i think) if you are going to install XP, which does not have support for it.

Isn't it true that you need this for XP *only* if you indeed have turbo mem installed? Does it refer to both cache & system ram or just one of them? I know i definitely do not have any performance issues, but can anyone provide a definitive answer for this?