Thinkpads Forum

Hello

Did anyone try Windows 10 after using Windows 7(or 8.1) and could provide any information related to power consumption? Some comparison or at least any data? Generic internet reviews for other laptops vary by large, and do not come from reliable sources. As the time for free update is ticking I do wonder is there any reason to switch to Windows 10.

Never mind W10 power usage.
Clone your current HD/SSD onto another one.
Then update one of those drives with Windows 10 until it is activated.
Mark that drive that it has W10, which type (Home,Pro,other) and belongs to machine XYZ.
Get the W10-key and other relevant info.
Once you have that, (or later on) you could wipe the W10 disk, D/L a new W10 of the same type, and install from scratch.
Then continue with whichever OS you want, current W7/W8 or new W10.

At idle X200T I had such a results on battery:
WIN8.1 about 6 hours;
WIN10 about 5 hours(WIN10 doing lot of HDD activity).

I tested several Thinkpads for power consumption with different OSes. The winner was Windows 7 and the loser Windows 10. Windows 10 has a periodic CPU surge--every few seconds--that increases power consumption considerably. I haven't taken the trouble to trace the service or process that is causing this. I did my power testing with a current meter measuring current consumption realtime. With Windows 10, I noticed a surge in current every few seconds that corresponded to a surge in CPU use in the task manager. I have no idea what Windows 10 is doing with all the CPU cycles.

Phoning home comes to mind...

Wondering how readings would look on 'stripped' Win 10.

For my current i7 x201s with SSD Win 7 is reporting around 6W idle, 2W less than any Linux installation and I tried many configs. This is with WiFi-off and when computer is not scanning disks/checking for updates etc. Anyway it took me some time to find proper software to make it work this way.

Okay, so Windows 7 wins. But how big the difference is? Also heard certain parts of Lenovo applications don't work in Windows 10, is this true?

I personally found Lenovo laptops of this age to work fine under Win10. You just run the update manager and it downloads the power manager access connections whatever.

Its not Win7 but its not terrible. I still wont use Win10 since it doesnt do much for me that Win7 doesnt do more efficiently.