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    Are appreciable amounts of power saved by turning off small internal devices not in use?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Masutin, Jan 15, 2017.

  1. Masutin

    Masutin Notebook Enthusiast

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    Does turning off the sound and disabling various network and bus adapters (for storage media) switch off the actual devices?
     
    Masutin, Jan 15, 2017
    #1
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  2. Dr. AMK

    Dr. AMK Living with Hope

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    Good question? It will be informative if someone expert answer it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2017
    Dr. AMK, Jan 15, 2017
    #2
  3. alexhawker

    alexhawker Spent Gladiator

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    If it does, it's likely a fraction of what's saved by lowering screen brightness. I'd rather do that than troubleshoot/waste time when one of those disabled devices is needed and it's been forgotten that it was turned off...
     
    alexhawker, Jan 15, 2017
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  4. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

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    To answer your poll question: 'much'.

    But not at the expense of usability. ;)

    Optane powered devices will (eventually) fix many of these interwoven aspects of 'usable portable power expectations', imo. :)
     
    tilleroftheearth, Jan 17, 2017
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  5. StormJumper

    StormJumper Notebook Virtuoso

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    If you want to power save in laptop get a laptop that is already built for it. As other said turning down the screen brightness will do more to save battery life then you expect but come at cost of seeing what is on the screen. Trying to tweak small components without know the full effect will lead to more problem then your trying to resolve.
     
    StormJumper, Jan 17, 2017
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  6. Tishers

    Tishers Notebook Consultant

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    The only thing I found (other than screen brightness) that had a significant, measurable improvement in battery life and energy consumption in a laptop was to disconnect the internal drive heaters in a Panasonic Toughbook.

    I live in an area where the outdoor temperatures are "warm" and I had converted the internal hard drives on the Toughbooks to SSD's. There was little reason to leave the resistive heating elements plugged in. I was not trying to warm up the bearings on a disk platter.

    It gave me maybe 10-15 minutes more runtime on battery.

    Some devices do the rather annoying thing of shutting down charging on USB ports. I would not try to go through and disable motherboard hardware functions in the thought of saving power. Usually it is more of a Pain in the a55 when it breaks something that is a hidden process in the operating system.
     
    Tishers, Jan 19, 2017
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  7. TomJGX

    TomJGX I HATE BGA!

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    Lowering the Screen brightness is a major saver of battery... Otherwise turning off bluetooth and wifi helps a bit too!
     
    TomJGX, Jan 19, 2017
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