Disabling a core on W5F?

I have a W5F (Core duo T2300) and I was wondering if it's possible to disable one of the cores.

Now I know you may have reactions ranging from to from what I'm wondering, but I was thinking of improving battery life since I can't really undervolt this thing any lower than .950 V on the lowest multiplier (and it stays here when on battery).

Well, obviously if I disable a core, I would want to be able to re-enable it as well... any ideas on how to do this?

 

through the bios if its even possible, but I know its possible with desktops. I don't think it will improve battery life much though

 

Just undervolt like you did, keep screen brightness on the lowest setting you can tolerate, and if your not using it, turn off Wi-Fi, Bt, and disable your optical drive. If you have any USB devices, unplug those as well.

 

Haven't seen any options on my V6J in the BIOS... Maybe with updates, but it might also be that it's not possible from the hardware at all.

I think his point was that you cannot undervolt the dual cores at min multiplier (they'll stay at the default .950V)

Does this help? :-/ given that the optical drive only fires when one inserts a disc into it...

Hmm... wouldn't it? I think CPU is one of the main consumers in a NB. If you can save power by shutting down a core, that depends on how power distributes across components --- cores, caches, buses etc.

 

well the second core is not using much power when its not in use

 

You will not notice any improvement in battery life with one core disabled. Even with it disabled, it will still draw power. It just won't process data. The Core Duo is so efficient that it shuts itself to an extremely low power draw when not in use.

 

Thanks for all of your replies guys.

A few clarifications:

-- According to RMClock, even my computer is idle, both cores still run at 1 gHz. When I start doing something mild, one core will jump up while the other one remains at 1 gHz, so even though the second core is "idle," it still draws power to run at 1 gHz.

-- When I say "disable," I mean literally and completely shutting down one core.

Update: I did find one option through the OS that allows me to uninstall the driver on the cpu cores... I'm kinda afraid to do that though...

 

You don't need to disable that core. The computer is smarter than you are giving it credit for. If the computer doesn't need the second core, it will shut the second core off. If the computer is using that core, it will use it. Shutting that core down will force the one core you have running to run at higher speeds and likely use more power. If you really want more battery life, force the processor to stay at the 1GHz mark, turn your screen down, disable everything, follow all of those tips, but let the processor handle itself, thats what it is designed to do.

 

how about a second battery? Messing with the core architecture is very dodgy!!

 

Thanks for all of your responses!

I don't think I will try to disable a core then, just everything else!

 

Try RMClock 2.1, you are also given throttle control in that version. That means you can drop the clock of the CPU even further than 1 GHz.

 

Not sure, never tried it. I read it in PC Mag. a while ago, they seemed to say that it would help a little. I think even though it is not running it still draws a small amount of electricity.

 

With swappable bay you can physically remove it, otherwise you can disable from software/driver. In the latter case, the drive'll still eat up a small amount of electricity. I don't expect the difference would rise above a few percent of battery life... which might or might not be that important