NC10 Power Management

I just got an NC10 and had a few power management questions.

Firstly, is there a way to customize the different power management modes (Silent, Normal, and Speed)? Normally I use RMClock/NHC to control dynamic switching and voltages, but neither seem to be compatible with the Atom. I realize there's a "Customized" setting, but I was hoping for more exact control rather than a generic "Maximizum", "Auto", and "Minimal". Also, what's the difference between Maximum and Auto? Is it that Auto uses dynamic switching and Maximum is simply always 1.6GHz? If so, it seems strange that when switching from Normal to Speed, the fan turns off; I would have expected it to be the other way around.

Secondly, is there a way to choose which of these is enabled by default? Ideally, it would switch over to Silent automatically when I boot it in battery or unplug the AC, then have it revert back to Normal or Maximized when plugging it back in.

Lastly, a couple minor questions: is there a way to disable that sound when switching between power states with Fn+F8? I thought that unchecking the sound option in Magic KBD would do the trick, but that didn't seem to affect anything. Also, has anyone noticed that "Speed Mode" has the title of the current window appended in the name for some reason? Is that some kind of weird bug?

Thanks!

 

The performance / noise modes work separately to the power management. As far as I could figure out, the three options for Fn+F8 are:

(i) Normal : Intel Speedstep works and the CPU speed dynamically changes. The normal fan rules (that are defined in the BIOS) apply.

(ii) Speed : Sensibly, this would lock the CPU to the maximum performance (but doesn't seem to). However, it allows the CPU to accelerate to full speed when running in the Maximum Battery Life power profile 9which would otherwise lock the CPU to 800MHz).

(iii) Silent : This locks the CPU to 800MHz and raises the temperature required to cause fan operation, so the fan does not come on.

RMClock doesn't work very well with the Atom - for me it doesn't read the CPU speed properly - and can't manipulate the voltages. At the same time it uses some of the CPU power.

I would only use the Fn+F8 option if you want to keep the fan from running (but it is a very quiet fan anyway), and use the Samsung maximum battery life power profile to squeeze the maximum run time out of the battery.

There may be more to find out on the way the Fn+F8 options and the power management options interact.

John

 

I too come from using Notebook Hardware Control and wish for the day I could easily configure clear schemes for fan control and processor speed, for on A/C and battery situations for the NC10.

 

All right -- thanks. Another issue that I just discovered that has been bugging me all day is that whenever I set power management options (such as time before going into standby, hibernate, monitor off, etc), these settings are cleared and put back to the Samsung defaults after reboot. Is there any way to fix this?

 

Which profile(s) are you trying to change?

If it is one of the Samsung profiles then you should change any settings within the Samsung Battery Manager. If it is a standard Windows power profile (eg maximum battery) then the settings should save OK.

John

 

I tried to do that, but all of the settings (other than Customized) are grayed out and it won't let me change them -- is this different for you?

Also, I just found this interesting bit from Samsung's website:

The full link to this page is here: http://ars.samsung.com/customer/usa/jsp/faqs/faqs_view.jsp?isINPUT=Y&SITE_ID=1&PG_ID=0&AT_ID=140769&PROD_SUB_ID=0&PROD_ID=1355. I guess that explains why the title of the active window is shown in the "Speed Mode" setting. It also explains why it wouldn't let me switch to Speed Mode at times. This is rather strange...I've never seen a feature like that on a notebook before.

 

No, mine are greyed out as well. You can change the time-outs under the Windows power management but I think they are temporary.

If you want your own time settings then you have to use either the Samsung customised profile or another one.

John