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    Hard drive sleeping lag? Powersave mode?

    Discussion in 'HP' started by boamuro, Sep 30, 2007.

  1. boamuro

    boamuro Notebook Guru

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    Every few minutes or so I hear a sound from my hard drive like it's powering up. And when it does that, for instance when I'm playing games, it hiccups like the hard drive can't keep up. I also noticed when I right click My Computer properties, it doesn't show my full CPU speed' it seems like AMD's Cool & Quiet where it doesn't use all the CPU but only when it needs to; is there anyway I can always have the CPU at max when I'm playing games? And how do I enable powersave mode if I'm just writing text for homework?
     
    boamuro, Sep 30, 2007
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  2. miner

    miner Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Are you using Xp or Vista? In XP set the power profile to 'Always On' to force the cpu to run at full speed and use 'Max battery' to set it to run at lowest when you are just doing your homework. As for the HDD issue, seems like you have set the HDD to turn off after a certain period of inactivity. You can also change this in the Power options menu in Control Panel.
     
    miner, Sep 30, 2007
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  3. boamuro

    boamuro Notebook Guru

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    Sorry for the late reply. Thanks. I am on XP.

    Setting it to 'Always On' seemed to work. What's the difference between "Max Battery" and "Portable Laptop" besides the minutes in dropdown menu? Is the "Always On" the only special scheme that acts different (ie: it actually makes your CPU run at full speed) regardless you mess with the dropdown menus?
     
    boamuro, Oct 7, 2007
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  4. miner

    miner Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    'Portable/laptop' sets your cpu to dynamic clock speeds - meaning it will automatically increase or decrease the clock speeds depending on the requirements. 'Max battery' will run your cpu at the minimum frequency all the time. 'Always On' as you noticed will do the opposite of 'Max battery', it runs the cpu at full speed all the time even on battery power.

    Portable/laptop is the best of both worlds...you get the power/heat savings when doing not too intensive stuff while still having the ability to increase the clock speeds to max if necessary.

    Sometimes manufacturers do change settings in the BIOS which override any changes made through the power profiles usually when the system is running on battery power. So, it might not have the same effect on all systems. AFAIK HP does not do this on their current gen systems.
     
    miner, Oct 7, 2007
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