[Guide] Improving Battery Life on Windows [+Enabling Deeper C States]

Nonono when your computer is FULLY IDLING (Doing absolutely nothing but on Windows Desktop) your C8 should be above 60-80%.

When using Edge and having three tabs, that is fully to be expected and is 100% normal. If I remember correctly, you have the 6700HQ. That is not very efficient by today's standards and 10-14W is unfortuanetly what is to be expected when doing light tasks.

 

Mine is a i7-7700HQ.
So will it make a difference?
If on idle,the C8 isn't at 60-80%,what should I do?
You didn't mention drivers but if they fail,what should I do?

 

If you have done everything in the guide but are still facing issues, I cannot help you without being physically in front of your computer. There are too many variables in laptops.

If driver's fail, just re-install them.

 

Will you consider releasing this guide to the public,on Reddit perhaps?
And also about the guide,you should have add an Basic section where things you can do that will immediately increase batter life like reducing the number of tasks,use the Power Saver profile+Battery Saver mode,reduce the screen brightness,etc....

 

I'm not sure. Do I really want to put it on Reddit, a place where some newbies try it and have no idea what they are doing? Disclaimers don't even work.

I'm definitely not adding a Basic section. They exist all over the internet so I'm not even going to try to duplicate. Thx for the idea though.

 

Hello Che. My GS73VR just cannot go beyond package C3 states. After a fresh Windows installation it can only reach package C2. Following your tips it can reach C3. Is there anything else that could cause this issue? Thanks.

 

For some reason the last thread is stuck at 0.2. Any guesses on how to fix this?

 

Does turning ON TS re-order the cpu cores? I think its an ordering issue or possibly a driver issue if its used on W10.

 

Has anyone with a MSI laptop managed to get deeper than C3?

 

it doesn't, that last thread is pegged at 0.2 for some reason

 

Have you tried new TS 8.76?

 

whoops, will update

 

OK, I gave it a try.

Now my machine is reliably achieving over 4hrs (sometimes by a few minutes, LOL) of battery life according to battery report, while it sometimes dropped lower than that before. Not much of an improvement, honestly - but then again my laptop does run something all the time, always on VPN eats about an hour of battery life, and so on.

Most services seem useful. )'=

Edge is a crappy browser; wanted to use it for Youtube only but it's terrible, stops showing videos after sleep - and unsuitable as main browser due to lack of privacy features. Movies&TV can't do volume boost, unusable for watching most movies.

Done.

Done.

Done, though mildly.

Done.

My CPU was entering deeper CPU states even without the tricks.

Skipped.

Skipped.

Done.

Mine is fine, skipped.

Don't usually attach anything to my laptop.

Skipped - will replace with higher capacity someday, anyway.

Can't live without mine, skipped.

 

Common sense will work pretty well against viruses.

 

Common sense doesn't work against misclicks.

 

Thanks for this post, easy to follow, thoroughly explained; however, I don't achieve the C0% <1% on all core/threads, I always have my first 4 core/threads fluctuating to 14, 10, 6, etc., as such I am unable to sit under <0.5W consistently. I tried running with the park policy @ 16% and 0%, nothing seemed to work. But overall pretty happy, my max wattage on idle was 1.4W if I am not mistaken.


MSI GS65 (i7-8750H; GTX 1070 Max-Q) 512GB Samsung PM981 NVMe OEM SSD

I updated the Samsung NVMe Drivers.

 

The 8750H is pretty powerful... It should idle very easily. I got my friends' 7700HQ down to 0.3W on idle CONSISTENTLY; The 8750H is basically the 8700HQ so I'm not sure what's happening there.

 

Samsung NVMe drivers increase power usage, so if you want better power try default MSFT driver.

 

Interesting, I use the Samsung drivers and it seems like I still get good results. I don't want to risk messing with swapping around for testing though.

 

Does Fast Boot have any effect on battery life? Would it be better to disable it?

I am finding conflicting information on line.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

No. It depends on your own testing. Fast Boot is basically hibernate; you may run into issues if you don't reboot your system for a few weeks. If you like having a 'fresh' system on boot instead of a hibernated one, you can turn it off.

if on HDD, leave it enabled, SSD, doesn't really matter (Shaves of 1-2seconds at most)

 

I made some tweaking to default MSFT driver to get Samsung NVMe like performance but sadly it worked only for me. I get 12MB more write speed in real world apps.

 

Thanks to the OP this will be my project in 02 days (improving on my rb15 4.5 hours of battery life)

 

I did a clean Windows 10 Education install on my new laptop and I barely have any power options in the advanced settings. I ran this script and nothing changed. When I go to
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings
There are a ton of nested subfolders and more subfolders. Can you please elaborate which files I need to change to 2?

 

I have a SATA 128GB Teclast SSD connected via M.2 to my system and I cannot get lower than Package C2 state - m3-7Y30 is idling at 0.8-0.9W which is completely unacceptable.

It came with the Microsoft Standard SATA ACHI Controller. I also tried the Intel SATA ACHI controller but it doesn't seem to be working.
I have a fully unlocked BIOS and I have been fiddlinrg around but nothing I can do will let me go lower than C2 state. The intel datasheet indicates that this Y CPU supports all the way to package C10.

These settings might not have much of an effect on battery life but you are welcome to try. I usually enable the attridutes to 2 for all of the processor settings.

 

How much watts is being pulled while in battery mode? Some drives go to low power when on battery and on AC power they stay at max performance.

 

3.3-3.8W on battery when idle. That's slightly lower than my previous i5 Xiaomi but that's probably because of my Teclasts' smaller display.

I'm looking to reduce it to 2.7W on idle, which is reasonably because my friends' ASUS Transformer with the M5-5Y10c idles at 0.2W with a total drain of about 2.8-3W

 

Have you used speedshift only?

 

Just restarted my laptop and disabled speedshift in BIOS and unchecked SST in TS. No difference

 

Did you un-hide power options?

 

Great guide!

I've already been using ThrottleStop undervolting and disabling Turbo Boost for my Battery Profile.

Also already been using tweak and added extra Advanced Power Options from TenForums.

Lastly, I've always disable components I do not use (web cam, SD card reader, etc) preferably in the BIOS and then via Device Manager.

Don't like to disable eye candy unless there's a program that allows eye candy profiles for battery and AC.

 

Uninstalled ParkControl, seems to do more harm than good on Intel 8th Gen after further testing.

While the battery seems better on idle, upon load the CPU has to work harder to get the cores on again which is almost always if you're doing any productivity on battery.

Perhaps for older gen CPU's where core parking was a part of the architecture then maybe ParkControl would have greater effect on battery life and better control over the cores parking.

 

CPU Core Parking settings can be manually adjusted by first setting the 'Attributes' DWORD Key in:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\943c8cb6-6f93-4227-ad87-e9a3feec08d1
to a value of '2', as shown in this image:

Then the setting itself can be changed by heading to Advanced Power Settings>Processor Power Management>Processor performance core parking overutilization threshold.

If Core parking is too aggressive, lower the value. Typically you want your cores to be parked on idle, but they should immediately unpark for burst tasks, for example, opening a program or browser.

Post updated for completeness.

 

Have you created a proper Advanced advance Power Options?

I am dying for it.

 

Will not be happening. There are too many variables and the effort is not worth the result. It's no longer efficient for software to control hardware - hardware should control itself (E.g. Intel SpeedShift EPP)

 

Would you agree if I rewrite the guide? I will link to your guide and have proper credits.

Thanks!

 

Sure

 

I tend to agree for newer gens (6/7/8/9...) of CPUs from Intel, manual control of core parking doesn't net you much if anything. It works great on my 3rd gen Intel CPU though. I'm not sure which generation it was that the major switch happened where the CPUs can enter a zero-power C state and completely disconnect from the voltage rail but I want to say it was around Gen 4 or 5.

IIRC Process Lasso (father of Park Control) allows you to set the above mentioned settings from within its GUI without the need to perform registry tweaks. Despite Park Control not being very relevant on modern CPUs from Intel, I still find Process Lasso is a great tool to use for its various features and ease of access to them.

 

Does Process Lasso work on 7th gen and higher?
And does it do anything?
I don't want to install a piece of crapware.

 

Yes, Process Lasso works on new hardware just fine.

IMO Process Lasso's creator is similar to UncleWeb in his programming philosophy. He originally designed the software to help address system responsiveness back when the Windows scheduler sucked more than it does now. According to him, Intel/M$ have adopted some of his initial load balancing/prioritization techniques into their hardware/software at lower levels on modern machines.

I personally use PL to easily monitor CPU load via its dynamic task tray icon, setting recurring (sticky) default priorities and core preferences for certain programs/services, and easily switching between power plans without needing to use the broken M$ GUI. It also has a "keep awake" function I find myself using frequently when I want to ensure my laptop will not shutoff for a given amount of time. There's also other functionality I don't use that some others may find useful.

FWIW the free version is pretty usable and not very gimped.

 

Hi!

I've followed the guide, C7 state is working, but I think the idle power consumption is still high.



These values are with no external devices attached to the laptop, screen is on lowest brightness. Is this normal? The CPU is a Sandy Bridge i3 2310M.

 

A 2nd gen Intel mobile CPU isn't going to be as low power as anything 5th/6th gen or newer. Have you tried using Park Control with your machine? Your 2nd gen CPU is old enough that it should benefit from manually controlling your core parking.

 

Yes, I have Park Control and Process Lasso installed, in Park Control every settings are at 0%, it parks one core (or two HT) in idle. So this is okay for an old CPU, it lasts about 2-2.5 hours web browsing with 48.6Wh battery.

 

Hmm... have a search around the web for your CPU's idle power consumption - it seems a bit high. I know for sure that Haswel (4th gen) drastically decreased power consumption, but 5W during idle seems a little high... According to that program, your 'uncore' seems to be using a lot of power - that includes your cache and maybe PCH? I'm not sure about 2nd gen CPUs at all. Can you give a screenshot of your ThrottleStop C state window? Your PACKAGE should be in C6/7/8

 

Here is it:

 

Process Lasso is good while on AC power but it will keep your CPU busy when idling if you are trying to trim power consumption at idle (whether on AC or battery). For your purposes of trying to reduce your idle consumption I would completely kill Process Lasso to eliminate it as a variable while you are doing your tuning and experimentation. Once your machine is dialed in you can re-enable it for daily use. FWIW, I usually kill PL when running on battery to allow my cpu's cores to idle in a deeper state.

 

Hey @Che0063 Thanks for this awesome guide!
I purchased a dell 7290 few weeks ago, didn't have much time to test the battery, and only used a few times before i did some of the tweaks.
First time i tested (stocked) i wached a movie about 2:00 hours and had left 11:30 hours of battery left.
Second time i went to a customer and worked about 7 hours with wifi and severals programs opened and ended up with about 41% of battery.
Yesterday i did some of your tweaks, and was on short a bus travel, and wached a movie about 1:45 hours, and ended up with 19:27 hours of battery life rest!!! It's amazing, a lot of improvement here. I don't use it much unplugged, but will be doing some more tests.
I even didnt solved de C2 status, but on idle im getting about 0.5-0.7W on TS.
One more time thanks for the effort! really happy with the result!

 

19 hrs is very good. What's the size of the battery? 99Wh?

 

Hey @Vasudev its just a 60Wh battery, i think 12" HD resolution is helping a lot on this machine.

 

Nice.