my laptop acting strange...

I have an HP Pavilion dv9235nr
I've noticed something very strange about it's performance.

If I convert a ~22min video from VOB to AVI(xvid) using high quality settings, it takes about 30min to convert, which is pretty good (my desktop pc takes 1hr for the same task). However... if I close the lid and just let it convert while I go away and do other things, it seems to take about two hours per video, instead of only 30 min. I've gone through all my settings that i could think of, and can't find anything that would make my computer actually run slower while the lid is closed. I have it set so that closing the lid "does nothing" while the computer is plugged in, so all it should do is turn off the screen. Why does it make my processes that much slower?

Advice, please

 

You may need to set the priority for Xvid in System tray.

 

How do I do that?

 

Go to the Processes tab in Task Manager, right-click on xvid and select Set Priority.

Do you have a screen saver configured? Perhaps Windows isn't smart enough to not run it when the lid is closed? I use no screen saver and have Windows power down the screen after 5 minutes.

 

I have no screen saver. My screen just turns off after 10min. But if my lid is closed, it's already off. It's not going into sleep or hybernate mode. I don't understand what the problem is. Next time I convert something I'll try changing the process priority on xvid and see if that helps. However I'm wondering if this is affecting just my xvid encoding, or if it would affect other tasks (encoding with other encoders, downloading, etc)

 

If I remember correctly, you right-click on the XviD icon in system tray, and there will be a PRIORITY option for you. I used Xvid once, but now I used Dvix.
You may want to set the power option to be ALWAYS ON when doing that. If the power option is PORTABLE/LAPTOP, then it might turns your HDD off. I ran into this problem when I let my laptop download was downloading torrents, and I close the lid and went to bed. Next morning, when I open the lid, and touch the touchpad, and there weren't any progresses.

 

Always On is overkill, and it'll heat up the laptop a lot more than necessary. You can configure Turn Off Hard Disks to Never regardless of Power Scheme if that's your concern, but if any program asks to access the HD then Windows will spin it up automatically. There's almost always some stray process that needs the disc so it's very rare for the primary HD to spin down. It's nice to let the second HD spin down if you have one though.

Laptops don't cool as well with the lid closed, and video encoding is going to crank up the heat. You might have tripped the thermal limit that forced the CPU into low-power mode?

 

Agree, Brianstretch!

 

Okay, I think I found the setting that's affecting my performance. I assume I would want it to save power to reduce heat? I guess that's the only reason to use less power while plugged in...

So if i set it to minimum, while plugged in, at least 50%... that should be good... right?

 

Give it a try first, and post the result. Goodluck Seattle pal.

 

Okay, I changed the minimum processor state to 50% while plugged in. Then I left it closed while I let it convert, although i was converting different material, so i'm not sure if i could accurately compare it. However, the time it took to convert was pretty close to the estimate that my conversion program gave me. So i guess it worked out alright, although if it was running at 50%, it would have taken longer, so it seems it was running at full capacity. Perhaps it was slowing down because I had my computer on for a long period of time prior to that particular conversion process. Hmm...