Can someone explain power4gear to me please?

I understand its a power saving utility, mostly for battery mode, but i'd like to know what it does to accomplish that.

What do each of the settings do, etc. I recently bought the M50VM and was upset with the performance before I realized that it was on the most crippled setting in power4gear.

So - what does it do in each mode? I tried searching and i googled it, but I didn't see a comprehensive explanation.


Thanks in advance!!!

 

Can't help, but also want to understand it better.

So posting to keep updated!

 

Power4Gear mainly adjusts the frequency of the CPU.

So, for instance:
QuietOffice will usually cap the frequency of the CPU to a low value, thus reducing heat output and fan noise, as well as performance.

???? I don't remember what other profiles there are, there should be one where the CPU speedsteps/adjusts frequency automatically according to load. This is where the notebook should sit most of the time.

HighPerformance will force the CPU to its highest speed, increasing heat output and fan noise without much benefit. (it's much better to use a dynamic profile such as the one above)

Power4Gear profiles aren't really very intuitive, I'm afraid. For instance, sometimes Battery Saving does NOT cap the CPU, while Quiet Office does. You can edit the min and max frequencies, but in the Vista version there is a slider which measures frequency in percent -- and I really am not sure how those percentages correspond to real life frequencies. For instance, few nowadays' CPUs can go lower than 50% of their max speed due to multiplier limitations -- so it makes little sense to be offered a slider that goes lower than 50%.

Perhaps you're better off using RMClock. Much more transparent and intuitive, but requires settings, doesn't work "out of the box". You will find a guide in my Tips and Tricks, under "Reducing heat and saving power with the CPU."

 

Thanks for the info - whats the difference between rmclock and p4g?

 

As I said, Power4Gear works out of the box, but its power profiles are not intuitive and you never quite know what it's doing, at least with the Vista version where CPU speeds are set in %.

For RMClock you configure multiplier use explicitly, much more transparently.