Choosing a Power Scheme

Windows XP offers two Power Schemes appropriate for laptops on the go. These are Portable/Laptop and Max Battery. They can both be chosen in the Power Schemes tab of the Power Options Properties box. Both power schemes conserve battery power. But Portable laptop adjusts what it conserves to the amount of power you need at the time, while Max Battery is much less flexible. It keeps your computer at a very low constant power rate no matter what you may be doing. So if you are planning on watching a DVD on that flight, which uses a lot of battery power, I don’t recommend using the Max Battery power scheme. It might not give you enough power.

Each power scheme also has its own settings for when the monitor and hard disks should be turned off. Remember that both are huge energy hogs, and that both the monitor and hard disk remain on longer under Portable/Laptop than they do under Max Battery.

The power scheme you choose also determines how long the computer will wait to go into Standby mode or Hibernate after remaining idle. Standby conserves energy because it turns off your hard disk and monitor. However, whatever you were working on at the time stays in memory (RAM) instead of being saved safely to your hard drive. The upside of Standby, though, is that when you press any key your computer will come out of the mode rather quickly.

Hibernation saves even more energy because it saves your work to the hard drive and then shuts your computer down almost all the way. Inherently, of course, this means it takes the computer longer to wake up to its normal state, but when everything does come back on, it looks the same as before. To switch your computer to Standby mode manually, click on Start, then on Turn off Computer, then on Standby. To make your computer Hibernate manually, click on Start and Turn off Computer again, but this time hold down the Shift key down afterward. The Standby key switches to “Hibernate.” Click it and your computer will go into Hibernation mode.

Creating Your Own Profiles

Maybe you don’t like the two power saving choices Windows gives you. Maybe you want to create custom ones to suit your own needs. You can do that! I created one for “Long Plane Rides.” I adjusted the settings in the Power Options Properties box. For instance, I indicated I wanted my monitor to turn off after only 2 minutes of idle time, and my hard disks after 3 minutes. Then I clicked on Save As, named my profile, and clicked OK. Now maybe the battery will last even longer on the flight.

Let’s go through some other choices in the Power Options Properties box. Under the Alarm tab, you can check boxes to either be alerted when your battery is low and/or when your battery is critical. You can even use the slider to make your own determination of just what is low and what is critical. Then you can click on Alarm Action to tell your computer to, for instance, sound an alarm or go into Standby mode when those moments are reached.

Under the Advanced tab, you can choose what you want your laptop to do when you close the lid. You can choose it to go into Standby mode, Hibernation, or even do nothing if you wish. You can also choose what you’d like the computer to do when you hit the power button.

If you’re interested in using your laptop’s Hibernation feature you should check the box under the Hibernation tab that says Enable Hibernation.