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Ok, what did I do? Power manager vs. BIOS CPU Speed

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 8:34 am
by wackyD
Morning folks!

I have been evaluating a transistion from a 1.5GHz C2D X60s to a 2.0 C2D X61. I had been struggling with the reduced battery life as the biggest difference as well as a bit more heat.

Initially, I adjusted using Power manager and had the X61 set to run at "Low" CPU speed rather than adaptive and saw good results for extending the life of the battery for an hour or so longer than my previous settings of Adaptive.

I noticed the CPU speed was basically locked @ 1.6GHz when on battery in that configuration and never dropped at idle, even with Deep Sleep enabled.

I assumed this had to do with the BIOS settings, so I changed the Battery setting to automatic from Max Performance.

Upon doing so, the machine runs at 800MHz instead of 1.6GHz all the time and CPUz never shows it running higher.


Going back to the BIOS settings, I put the battery setting back to performance, but still have a speed of 800MHz unless I set the Power manager back to adaptive.



School me here - how can I: a) get my machine to vary CPU speed up to 1.6GHz or b) get my machine back to running at 1.6GHz on battery.


Thanks for any insight you may offer!!!


Daniel

Re: Ok, what did I do? Power manager vs. BIOS CPU Speed

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 8:40 am
by loyukfai
Thought modern OS override most of the power settings in BIOS...?

Maybe you can try to load defaults in the BIOS and see if it helps...?

Cheers.

Re: Ok, what did I do? Power manager vs. BIOS CPU Speed

Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 6:53 am
by dmdsoftware
Which OS are you using?

Do you have the battery attached during the testing?

Which power supply are you using 65W or 90W?

I saw and researched that there are some overrides in the hardware when you don't have a battery attached or when you use the 65W adapter.

Re: Ok, what did I do? Power manager vs. BIOS CPU Speed

Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:03 am
by wackyD
I have a genuine 8-cell and no A/C adapter attached for this.

I was seeing battery life more like my X60s when the speed was locked at 1.6GHz, so I was trying to work that further.

It behaves as expected when set in Power Manager to adaptive, just uses the battery faster than desired.

I will reset the defaults in BIOS at my next opportunity.

Thanks!


Daniel