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    Set charge limits without power manager in Windows

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by Pseudorandom, Oct 26, 2012.

  1. Pseudorandom

    Pseudorandom Notebook Evangelist

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    So. Power Manager isn't available for Windows 8. Thus we can't do charge limits. Or can we.

    We can set charge limits under Linux with tp_smapi, there should be a way to do so under Windows as well.

    How can we do the same under Windows?

    Do any of you know the inner workings of tp_smapi, what it tells the battery when it tell it to set a charge limit? Would there be a hackish way to get this working under Windows until MS/Lenovo get everything fixed with the Metro app?
     
    Pseudorandom, Oct 26, 2012
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  2. ibmthink

    ibmthink Notebookcheck Deity

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    Install the power manger, and set the charge limits. It works! :)
     
    ibmthink, Oct 26, 2012
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  3. Pseudorandom

    Pseudorandom Notebook Evangelist

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    Eh? Power manager refuses to install, unless they updated in the last day or so.
     
    Pseudorandom, Oct 26, 2012
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  4. Mr.Pie

    Mr.Pie Notebook Geek

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    There is a windows 8 compatible power manager the last I checked which was yesterday.

    Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
     
    Mr.Pie, Oct 26, 2012
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  5. Pseudorandom

    Pseudorandom Notebook Evangelist

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    Where is this Windows 8 Power Manager? All the driver page for my Thinkpad lists is the Windows 7 version, and Google isn't being my friend
     
    Pseudorandom, Oct 26, 2012
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  6. AboutThreeFitty

    AboutThreeFitty ~350

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    AboutThreeFitty, Oct 26, 2012
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  7. Pseudorandom

    Pseudorandom Notebook Evangelist

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    That has the Power Management Driver, but not the Power Manager (UI). Is Power Manager under something else?

    EDIT: It seems like people have had success getting the Windows 7 Power Manager to install on 8... But it doesn't seem to work for me. When I go to install it, it says "Cannot run on this system"
     
    Pseudorandom, Oct 26, 2012
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  8. Mr.Pie

    Mr.Pie Notebook Geek

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    Which Thinkpad do you have? I'll try finding it for you

    Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
     
    Mr.Pie, Oct 26, 2012
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  9. Pseudorandom

    Pseudorandom Notebook Evangelist

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    Thinkpad X220i

    EDIT:
    So I tried compatibility mode. Yay it installed, the bar shows up but,
    PmlUz.png

    Now comes the question of how do I access battery maintenance...

    EDIT2:
    Solved!

    I don't know how many of these steps are necessary, but this is what I did to get power manager fully working on my X220i

    1. Installed Power Management Driver for Windows 8
    2. Did the first part of installing Power Manager for Windows 7
    3. Ran Setup.exe under Windows 7 compatibility mode
    4. Go to where it was installed and tick the Windows 7 compatibility mode boxes on both PWMUI.exe, PWMUIAux.exe,

    That was ridiculous. And also pretty mysterious as it seems like some people could just install it without doing anything at all...
     
    Pseudorandom, Oct 26, 2012
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  10. sciencefair

    sciencefair Notebook Consultant

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    Glad to see you got it working. I did not have to do step 4 from your post, but I installed Power Manager then the driver. Don't know if that changed anything.
     
    sciencefair, Oct 27, 2012
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  11. Mr.Pie

    Mr.Pie Notebook Geek

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    congrats :D
    glad you got it working ;)
     
    Mr.Pie, Oct 27, 2012
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  12. 600X

    600X Endless bus ride

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    If I'm not mistaken charge thresholds are actually stored in the battery itself. If you set them under Win 7 and upgrade to Win 8, your limits still remain because the battery has stayed the same.
     
    600X, Oct 27, 2012
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  13. ibmthink

    ibmthink Notebookcheck Deity

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    If you install the Power-Manager and if you install then the "Lenovo Settings Dependency Package", Power Manager gets updated from version 6 to version 7.11:
    power-manager7.JPG
     
    ibmthink, Oct 27, 2012
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  14. sciencefair

    sciencefair Notebook Consultant

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    Have you seen any differences? That's interesting..
     
    sciencefair, Oct 28, 2012
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  15. ibmthink

    ibmthink Notebookcheck Deity

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    No, there are no differences at all which you can see. Maybe the version 7 is better compatible to Windows 8.
     
    ibmthink, Oct 28, 2012
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  16. giodelgado

    giodelgado Newbie

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    hi, I installed Win8 Pro on top of my Win7 installation, I can't run Power manager, it just gets stuck...

    most of the time I do a clean install and I've been worried about my Win8 installation, did any of you did a clean install? what software did you install to get everything working? (fingerprint reader? any other Lenovo software?)

    I'd appreciate your help =)
     
    giodelgado, Oct 29, 2012
    #16