Power Plan Instructions Being Ignored by W7

I have a Sony Vaio VPCZ11 using Windows 7 Pro. I have created my own power plan with personalized settings for brightness, duration before dim, duration before sleep, etc., for both battery power and AC power. I have also set the advanced power settings for my plan, including the following settings for when I switch from AC power to battery power: A.) switch from a 60Hz refresh rate to a 40Hz rate, B.) color change from 32 bit to 16 bit, and C.) the DVD drive set to turn off.

When I created this plan a few weeks ago, it was working properly. When I would unplug, the screen would go black momentarily, indicating to me that the color change and/or refresh rate was changing. However, I am no longer noticing that when I unplug. So tonight I unplugged and checked the advanced settings under Resolution, and discovered that my refresh rate and colors are NOT switching according to my power plan instructions. I have checked and double checked and those instructions in my power plan are set correctly. I have even restored the defaults and set them all again, to no avail. My hunch is that there is some conflicting setting that is preventing the refresh rate and color change from occurring when I switch to battery. But I have been unable to discern what that might be. The DVD drive also seems to be remaining active when I switch to battery.

Anyone have any insight?

 

Try to set up VAIO Power Management again. Set the Control Panel -- Power Options to Balanced and you may have to go thru that power option list again.

You could turn off a couple things in VAIO PM:
DVD/Bluray - Auto Off
iLink Port - Disable
Memory Card - Disable
PC Card Slot - Disable
Modem - Disable

Bluetooth - Disable from devices in Control Panel if you don't use it.
Use Touchpad instead of a USB Mouse if possible.

Turn wireless off if not in use.

Undervolting the CPU would've been nice but I hear it's no longer possible on i-series. Undervolting brings down the CPU heat and the CPU fan rpms of course.

See if you can undervolt or underclock the graphics chip in any way.

You probably changed the Windows theme at one point along with the power scheme.

 

Vaio PM is where I have all of these settings set (i.e. DVD drive set to turn off, refresh rate changes, color changes). Those settings are in place for my custom power plan. But they are not being followed.

I'm not so much worried about undervolting/underclocking the CPU/GPU. My main question is why are my Vaio Power Management instructions not being followed.

I HAVE switched the Windows theme at one point, so you may be on to something there. Why would that make a difference with my Vaio Power Management settings? The settings didn't change, so why would changing the theme nullify those instructions?

 

This thread hasn't received a lot of traffic, but thought I would bump it with an update.

I reinstalled Vaio Power Management along with a bunch of other Sony utilities off of their website. That fixed the problem. When I would unplug, my Vaio Power Management instructions were again being followed (refresh rate would change, color scheme would change). DVD was not being powered off, because it said it was in use...I assume because I had a disk in the drive? Anyway, that didn't bother me, as at least I could tell Vaio Power Management was working again. But only for a matter of hours.

That night I installed a game (Napoleon Total War, as well as Steam). The next morning I also did an automatic Java update. Those changes (most likely the game/steam) have now caused Vaio Power Management to crap out once again. Those instructions are again not being followed when I go to battery. Any thoughts?

 

check your administrator rights and those for the Vaio admin program.

the named user administrator does not necessarily have all rights/roles unless seized/granted. same thing with programs.

 

Try to select the Balanced plan in Control Panel - Power Options which is also the default plan. Don't use the Power Saver or High Performance or RMClock Power Management or anything else. Reinstall VPM. Windows 7 comes with Java installed already. I stopped downloading and installing the Sun platform about two years ago. Do you run anything that requires the platform installed?

Anyways I think your thread fits best somewhere in the Sony sub-forum.

You also have that switch for Auto-Stamina-Speed. If it's set on Auto it's probably following a diff power scheme which I have no idea about. Turn off all your devices from VPM and set up your plan from Control Panel, go thru advanced settings also.

 

I can give this a try. The thing is, it worked for a few hours, then stopped working, so I don't think admin rights is the answer, unless other software is conflicting...

 

Thanks for responding again.

I am using a customized Power Plan. Even when I select the prebuilt plans (like Balanced) the Vaio Power Management instructions are not followed. But I suppose I can try reinstalling VPM again, but I don't want to do this every time it craps out. That doesn't seem like a viable solution.

You may be right about this belonging in the Sony forum. I posted here originally because I felt at first that it was probably a Windows 7 issue, but now I think Vaio Power Management itself is the culprit. If a mod wants to move it, please feel free.

Regarding the hybrid graphics, I almost always keep the switch on Stamina and use the integrated Intel graphics. I never use Auto, and only use Speed when I'm using HDMI or playing a game. When VPM WAS working, I tested it in both Speed and Stamina and it didn't make a difference...it worked fine. So the hybrid graphics do not appear to play a role in whether the instructions are followed. I'm not sure what you mean by this: "Turn off all your devices from VPM and set up your plan from Control Panel, go thru advanced settings also."

 

I'm sorry what I meant was to setup Vaio Power Management first to turn off all your devices that you don't need when you need to save power (I'm not familiar with the refresh rate option) and then run Control Panel - Power Options and start your own power plan from Windows 7. Click Advanced Settings for that plan and customize it to your needs. This will be part of your theme also so if you change your theme you may have to re-do it again.

 

Interesting. Okay, I'll give it a try in that order. I can only use VPM to turn off one device, and that is the DVD/CD drive. The other options are for changing the color scheme (32 bit to 16 bit) and changing the screen refresh rate (60Hz to 40Hz).

 

No luck doig this. I've tried creating three custom power plans now and they just don't do what Vaio Power Management says they should do to conserve power. Very frustrating. I guess I'm going to need to call Sony again about this (second time). They want me to wipe out the entire hard drive and start fresh. Thanks Sony for the thorough troubleshooting.

 

Try this:

Hit WindowsKey+R and copy and paste this in -->
C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\VAIO Control Center\VAIO Control Center.exe /VCC

To get to VPM right-click the CD thingy icon in taskbar and choose power settings.

Either way here are the two windows you should get to, from there it should be easy to set-up your power plan.

First one's for VAIO control center and the 2nd one's for VPM.

 

Yes, thank you. But the problem is not that I don't know where these settings are. The problem is that I'm setting instructions in these windows and then they aren't being followed. For example, in your second thumbnail attachment (VPN window) I have my color quality set to be 32 bit when plugged in, but 16 bit when on battery. When I unplug and go to battery, it DOESN'T change to 16 bit. That's the case with all my settings in this window. Hence, VPM instructions are not being followed.

 

It just hit me, is the VAIO Power Management service working properly?

Run "services.msc" and scroll down to VAIO Power Management ,right-click on it and choose Properties and you should have a window similar to my picture. Then right click on the taskbar and "Start Task Manager" to confirm both SPMgr.exe and SPMService.exe processes are running.

The reason I'm asking this is because if I stop this service my laptop acts just like yours it's not following any power management plan. Make sure the service is started and set to automatic.

 

I've been here too. This does seem to be a part of the problem, because this service is constantly listed as "stopped." But even when I activate it, it still doesn't work. And usually when I reboot it defaults to "stop" the service again.

 

Try to set-up the next 2 options like this:

 

I don't have my Z with me at the moment, but I will definitely try this. I believe the first screen you posted matches what I have. But I'll see about the second one. Thanks so much for your help. I'll let you know if it works.

 

Aha! I found the culprit! I had turned off the Windows Event Log because it was interfering with other software. Turning that off screwed VPM apparently. I discovered this when I went to do a backup to an external tonight and I couldn't. Some google research revealed I needed the Windows Event Log turned on. Upon reboot, I found that VPM was now functioning normally.

Thanks Twiz57 and newsposter for all your replies and your suggestions.