Saving Battery Time: How do I get my HDD to stop spinning?

[iamdmc]

Hello Happy Thinkpad People

I have a question about my X61s. I bought an 8-cell battery and was INCREDIBLY impressed with the lifetime - I used it from 9AM to 4PM with only about a 30 minute rest time, then for about an hour afterward once I got home. I noticed, though, that after the second time I charged it and booted it off the battery, the lifetime was not as it was before, (6h instead of 8h) and that my hard drive was constantly spinning. What can I do (if anything) to get it to load more quickly, or stop whatever is spinning it. Could it be the indexer? I've already turned off my Virus Scanner's "Resident shield" (it's AVG), but I see on the system monitor that the indexer is taking a good chunk of RAM and CPU. So is a Windows Media Player network service.

Any advice? Tips?

[pibach]

I tried a lot with all the Vista processes that access the HDD. There are a lot. Also Firefox, AntiVirus, etc does access the HDD periodically. Could not get rid of these HDD accesses even in idle usage. But probably if you boot from an USB stick? Of if you configure Temp and other most used folders to a SD card?

[iamdmc]

Say I don't want to boot from USB?

[gpvillamil]

Hello Happy Thinkpad People

I have a question about my X61s. I bought an 8-cell battery and was INCREDIBLY impressed with the lifetime - I used it from 9AM to 4PM with only about a 30 minute rest time, then for about an hour afterward once I got home. I noticed, though, that after the second time I charged it and booted it off the battery, the lifetime was not as it was before, (6h instead of 8h) and that my hard drive was constantly spinning. What can I do (if anything) to get it to load more quickly, or stop whatever is spinning it. Could it be the indexer? I've already turned off my Virus Scanner's "Resident shield" (it's AVG), but I see on the system monitor that the indexer is taking a good chunk of RAM and CPU. So is a Windows Media Player network service.

Any advice? Tips?

It is probably the indexer. Just let it run overnight so that it builds a complete index. After that, it should only reindex changes.

[rokahn]

how to configure firefox internet cache, Windows temp directory, and other suchsuch to use a ramdisk or USB drive? For example, I don't see any option in Firefox to set this directory.

[iamdmc]

When I go into "Index Options" it lists "Indexing is complete"

But when I open up the task manager, it's still using ~80,000kb RAM and up to 20% of the CPU.

So what can I do?

[pibach]

Indexing: You can either dissable the service completely (in the System management, Services) or go to you HDD properties and disable indexing for this or for specific folders.
Then there is the option to set the indexing in the power pan option, e.g., disable it in battery mode.

[pibach]

how to configure firefox internet cache, Windows temp directory, and other suchsuch to use a ramdisk or USB drive? For example, I don't see any option in Firefox to set this directory.

I actually don't know. But:
Firefox cache is in \Documents and Settings\[username]
And you can move the whole \Documents and Settings\[username] to a flash memory or Ram drive easily via a simple reregistry entry.

See the howto here: http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips1409.html

[iamdmc]

Indexing: You can either dissable the service completely (in the System management, Services) or go to you HDD properties and disable indexing for this or for specific folders.
Then there is the option to set the indexing in the power pan option, e.g., disable it in battery mode.

I'm running Vista Basic and I don't see anything like that in HDD properties. I see "Index this drive for faster searching" but it's only a check box.

As for the power plan options, there's no "off on battery" option, only a "power saver" option, which probably means hick all, knowing windows...

Is there some other way to turn off indexing while on battery (other than unchecking the index box in HD properties whenever I'm using battery, then turning it back on when I'm on AC)?

[pibach]

yes, you can configure this in the energy plan "indexing" options.