Win7 optimization with a twist

I could use some help tweaking my new tabletpc (Fujitsu u820) to get the longest battery life possible. This tablet already gets 8+ hours with the screen on 60% and with wifi on, but I could use as much more as I can get. I would also like to minimize startup time, with battery life in mind. Here what I'll be running on it:

Foxit Reader
Bluebeam PDF Revu
Garmin Mapsource
Microsoft Streets & Trips
Microsoft Office
Virtual CloneDrive or something like it

I have a spare Kaspersky suite license, but I'm thinking I'll probably run Microsoft Security Essentials.

Once I put files on the computer, that's pretty much all that will be on it, although they'll be edited occasionally, but mostly read.

I will never use Bluetooth. Audio will be used for a stretch a few hours long, and then probably never used again. Wifi will be used about once a week. It will only be used at night, so the screen will be kept at minimum levels. The only external devices attached or inserted will be usb to handheld gps, and a SDHC memory card.

So basically, what can I turn off and disable? I know it won't make much of a difference, but every little bit helps.

Fwiw, I'll only be able to recharge every week or two, so even 10 minutes of extra battery life may give me another night of use. Carrying a spare battery or a solar charger are heavy and expensive options that I will not utilize.

I've been trying to search for information here and by Google, but I haven't seen much yet, and nothing like there was for Vista.

 

http://www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/servicecfg.htm

 

The reason you don't see a lot of documentation about this out there is because the OS is so new and because there's such a huge crowd of people who think 7 is perfect as is without optimization. I completely disagree and it looks like you do too. There is a lot you can strip out and turn off. Darth Bane's link is a great start. You can also start applying the tips and tricks that worked on Vista and XP to 7.

One of the first things I do is turn off every single automatic update program so they're not trying to phone home without explicit permission. Jump into msconfig and de-select any update startup services you don't want. Also turn off Windows automatic updates. 7 has this sneaky trick of turning them back even if you've already turned them off. While you're at it, you might want to kick system restore and various scheduled tasks (such as defrag) off as well. You can go the extra step of disabling physical hardware you have no intention of using via the network connections window or device manager, or you can just leave them toggled off if you have hotkey control.

If your system is equipped with a GPU, one thing you do not want to do is to completely turn it off. It's best to leave it in a minimal power state as 7 will leverage it for rendering its GUI. However, some people have suggested you can shave a few seconds off boot times by turning on No GUI Boot.

I'm sure there's more you can do. Just running around turning off things you'll never use is a good start. Document what you turn off so that you can reverse changes should a problem crop up. If you really want to go the extra mile, start doing some research on undervolting both your CPU and GPU. I have never done it before, but I know there are applications out there that can accomplish this task. Undervolting will have the most bang for your buck, but it comes at the expense of performance and a higher level of required tech troubleshooting skills. Good luck!

 

I would also take a look at the Windows 7 Optimization Guide located in my signature. Has some advanced tips and tricks you can try out. Good luck.

 

As previously pointed by Dragon Myr, undervolting your processor and graphics card is a free and easy way to get the most out of your battery life, on my Clevo D901C laptop, by undervolting the processor I squeezed an extra 1 hour of battery during Light Work and an extra half an hour while gaming, and my laptop uses a Desktop Quad Core (Not i7).

A look at the Undervolting Guide may help you to learn how to undervolt your processor properly.

Disabling indexing on the hard drives does not only increase the performance overall, but also it increases your battery life during some situations, so it may help also, at the expense of having a slower Windows Search.

--

Undervolting your graphics card is a more complicated process, that requires you to use RivaTuner to regulate the Voltages on your card, or using Nibitor to dump your graphics card's VBIOS, changing the values and then reflashing your card again with the update VBIOS using a MS-DOS boot disk along with a command prompt program to flash it on the graphics card.

If not done right, the flashing process could potentially brick your graphics card and render it unuseable, sort of, requiring you to blind flash the card.

 

If you want a functional system DO NOT follow Darth Bane post above.
It doesn't provide 1 min more of battery life. The days of XP are over! Services are process that "activates", on EVENTS.
Meaning if you have no events all it does is consume a few kilobytes of your memory (RAM). System memory power consumption is the time no mater how much you use.

Disabling Windows 7 Search Indexing means that instance search is gone, and it will and through the HDD, which consumes more power.

Disabling the page file is useless, Windows 7/Vista uses your RAM first, once it's near full, it uses the page file.

Disabling Aero can be up or down, depending on your GPU. GPU's have a power managing system, they down-clock to a minimum speed when not in used to save power. If your GPU is powerful enough to handle Aero at minimum speed, disabling Aero (using Aero Basic or classic) will consume MORE battery life, as the GPU clock and power consumption are the same in both cases, but what happens is that the CPU will be used to draw the interface. CPU's are/never was/never will be optimized for drawing. CPU's are designed to manage the computer to a certain extend and execute instructions from application, not to draw. They suck at it. Don't believe me? Weather Aero is ON or OFF, the blue selection box in Windows is drawn by the CPU for some reason, try and make a big selection from edge to edge on a large screen, and watch the CPU spike at ~100%/#of processors (1CPU will go a max or near max).

If your tablet PC uses a OLED (not be confused with LED backlit LCD's) screen rather than LCD, then using a black background save battery life (black pixel = off pixels so lower power consumption)

Have MINIMUM startup program.

Defrag well the HDD every now and then when plug-in to keep HDD activity to minimum (if you have an SSD, this is not needed).

Undervolting is good way to lower power consumption (see Aeris post).

No active A/V. Reduce system power consumption by disabling live scanning (scan manually every now and then when plug-in), or simply don't have one. But of course, if you are in such situation BE VERY VERY CAREFUL what you download, and what USB memory you plug on your system.

More USB/Firewire devices connected, the more it consums power.

Also have a look at Windows "Power Saver" power configuration. You have interesting options, For instance, on my laptop, I block the CPU to stay from 0% (well minimum of the CPU speed can go) to 50% when on battery. SO that even under load spikes, my CPU doesn't go full speed.

Go 64-bit. 64-bit instructions are easy to execute for the CPU (less of them), so it save power. I noticed I gain battery life by using Windows Media Player 12 64-bit using 64-bit codecs (I use Shark007 64-bit codec pack). Do the same for Office 2010, and any other software that exists in 64-bit flavor. Please note that I am NOT talking anything drastic, it's small, very small even depending on what you do, but anything that helps, well helps.

 

I have to agree with GoodBytes.

Most tasks and processes get only executed when Win 7 is idle and connected to the AC adapter.

Disabling indexing won't increase battery life, rather decrease, because you need more time finding files, Windows, too.
The same with most other stuff.

However, disabling Windows updates, maybe worth, because I don't know if it get's executed on battery, too.

The AV scanner does update automatically. I don't know how Kaspersky works, but the AV scanner I use, NOD32 does a short memory, boot record scan after each update. You should deactivate this or even deactivate automatic updates at all, and update the AV scanner every two week manually.

Depending on how much RAM you have, you could think about using a RAM disk with the whole browser or other temporary files on it. So the HDD can turn off or enter sleep mode faster.

The best methods to prolong battery life I know, have I described in the guide posted on tablet PC review.

So deactivate every not needed hardware, like LAN card, finger print reader, USB ports, check your background processes, optimize your power profiles (dim screen), that's it.
There are also scripts and other tools available which allow you to turn on and off devices with a shortcut.

Install a SSD and use hibernation instead of sleep mode.

 

The OP states he is using a Fujitsu u820. It has a atom cpu which is only 32-bit.

Everything else you said I agree with. Especially the page file. The u820 has 1gb of embedded/non-upgradable memory.

 

Atom CPU's can be 64-bit.
Atom 230, D410, 330, D510, N400 are all 64-bit.

I have an nVidia ION platform here, and it proudly runs Windows 7 64-bit Pro.

 

Okay, I will clarify. It uses a Z530.

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=35463

None of the Z series atoms are 64 bit.

My mistake for not being more specific. My own netbook uses a Z520, so I am just accustomed for atoms being only 32bit.

 

You should also apologize for making old-school XP recommendations that do not apply to Win7 or to extending battery life.

or not.

 

Most of the things done in Vista can be done in 7 to get a faster performing OS, but you do sacrafice a bit like you would in Vista, like disabling aero, and indexing service. There really isn't much to tinker around with, same with Vista when I had it. If you do what Darthbane suggests, do it dedicatedly, and read the descriptions of the services. There are still services that are set to Automatic that most users don't use and can still be changed to Manual or even Automatic(delayed). You can still disable every single visual effect, and get a slightly faster computer. Or you can leave it default, and not worry about it, as any gains you get would probably be marginal at best, unless it really bugs you. No way has optimizing an OS given people huge amounts of gains, just minimal gains, and is at best for those who want a near perfect computer to their tastes. I don't mention under volting because that isn't optimizing the OS, that's optimizing hardware, and I think if you were after that, that would be the biggest gain you'd ever get in terms of battery life. The only things that actually work is maintenance, defrag regularly after large file operations, cleanup folders and what not of old files and programs you don't need. All of these are routinely done though, defrag should be scheduled if not done in the background starting with Vista and later, cleanup can be done on schedule as well if you set it up through task manager. Those two will probably benefit you most in the long run.

 

Thanks for the advice folks.

SDreamer, marginal gains are fine since even small fractional gains on a computer with the battery life of the u820 is still a pretty decent chunk of time. Even a 5% improvement can add around half an hour of runtime. That's very significant for my needs.

 

You have quite the battery life already if 5% can add half an hour.

 

Yep, long battery life. I'm sure I can consistently get 12+ hours of battery life. Most people usually get 6 hours with the T4210 with dual batteries, but I often get over 10, and have hit around 12 a couple times. So based on my usage, I think 12 hours with the little u820 is a reasonable expectation. I'll find out soon.

Anyway, thanks for you help folks. I leave on my trip in about 20 hours. I appreciate all your help.

 

I'll be following this post, as I have a Viliv S5 with very similar hardware. I can reliably get 8hrs, but I run Aero (with no transparency), and a couple of other things also. But I'm always interested in some extra battery time.

 

Don't expect me to update this until the fall as I'll be hiking from Mexico to Canada during this time. I start hiking in a few hours.

 

Why is running less not applicable to conserving battery life?

 

Because it doesn't, on any computer from 2005 that is Win7 ready in specs (and drivers). Meaning, powerful GPU (for the time. Today, a very low end GPU beats a 2005 gaming GPU)), memory, dual core CPU).

Here are some few factors:
1- Multiple CPU. The benefit of having more cores in our processors, is that they can execute a program both at the same time, accelerating the speed of execution. XP (I am talking XP itself with all Windows built-in software), doesn't do that. It can switch cores, but can't use 2 cores at the same time. This translates that you power all your cores and don't get any benefit form it.Other than having MSN on one Core, and XP on the other (if you know what I mean). A waste of power.

2- Memory management, in a O.S is very complex. It can't be simply exampled, it's a full university course by itself to get an idea. So I'LL TRY to explain the best I can, with simplification in a few sentences. Memory management follows an algorithm, for instance: look at the frames (segment that is automatically allocated to process by the memory management system) each process needs find a common ground and split the memory accordingly, another method used in early systems, is to use Worst Fit, where it give large page/frame of the memory to a process. This end up having larger section for smaller process to fit. They are many many other solution, such as dynamic allocation, which is much more complex. If you actually read on it, you will see that you have basically 2 scenarios. Either optimize everything for little memory with small application footprint (which was the case in the old day, I mean compare a program in 2001 and today, their is a BIG difference - More features, improved features, and better/fancier interface), or large amount of memory with larger program footprint. You can't have both worlds sadly.

Side Note: When I say 'process', I use it's real definition, which a running program.

XP and older Windows, are designed for system with very low memory, and small application footprint. And to handle larger applications, it uses the pagefile, to allow other process to access the memory. So, what happens when you run today's basic application (which have a much greater memory footprint (heck look at Office 2007/2010, Firefox as 2 examples), the OS starts using the pagefile. Pagefile is on the HDD, so it uses the HDD rather than memory. For the CPU to execute a request to get a memory segment from HDD, to have the memory segment it needs form HDD to the main memory to be able to access it. (because it can't see anything other than main memory and it's built-in cache, as storage device), is a BIG performance degradation. Using the HDD reduces system performance, and increase power consumption.

BUT WAIT there is more!
Because XP seams (I can't confirm this, other than using observation, as I don't work for Microsoft and never saw the OS source code) to uses large memory frames (segmentation) (because they are small in very low memory such as <512MB of RAM. Processes uses a lot of partial memory frame, so you have external fragmentation (memory blacks that is not used but could potentially used), you come to a point where the OS has to perform a memory compacting procedure to have more free frames to allows other process to use it. Memory Compacting is VERY taxing onto the system. Get out a VERY old system like a Pentium III 800Mhz, with 128MB of RAM you will notice that sometimes that you do nothing, or do some basic thing like pop-up a dialog box to save something, the system comes to a crawl paste for no reason, and the HDD is heavy work... that is memory compacting at work.

Ok, that was for memory management at a large overview...

3- Interface rendering. You have a GPU.. no mater what you do (assuming that you want to use the system by-itself) it's being powered to output an image on your screen. GPU's on laptops can, like CPU's, change it's power consumption on the fly. Idle -> minimum clock and power consumption used, Heavy Load -> goes at max speed, consumes more power. When you have a GPU that can handle Windows Aero without any problem (which is not at all problem in today's low end dedicated GPU's of the current generation of GPU's), the GPU stays at minimum speed and consumes the same amount of power than if it did not do anything. So, why not have the fancier visuals? Useless, you say. Or is it? Aero engine uses the GPU to render the interface rather than XP and older Windows approach (or Aero Basic/Classic) using the CPU. The last thing a CPU was designed to do, is drawing. So you struggle the CPU for moving a window, especially if you have a wallpaper. So here you lose battery life.

They are other reasons, such as the improved service system in Windows over XP's where the service is executed only on an event call (that's the real idea of services, else it can just be a program running on the back non-stop, consuming CPU power for some event check).

Other benefits of Vista/Win7:
- Instant Search - seeking files is instant, less HDD activity - save battery.
- SSD optimized - extend the life span of SSD drive and performance.
- Improved font rendering - Easier to read and nicer, all by not consuming more power sue to caching system.
- Improved Services system. More services doesn't degrade system performance.
- Improves Wireless connectivity for easy and fast connect
- Working sleep feature with ultra fast wake up and connection to the network/internet (Win7)
- Auto-optimizing and maintaining, all by knowing your power status (no complete indexing, no defragmentation, no maintenance, etc. while on battery).
- 64-bit flavor. Allowing to run 64-bit codecs/programs to save power and having the whole OS in 64-bit, multi-core optimized, benefit single core signed 32-bit applications.
- and much more.

 

It's always applicable. However, for some people it makes such a negligible difference that they don't bother to take advantage of such small improvements. As our computers get more powerful the impact of unnecessary services sitting around started but waiting becomes less and less noticeable. It all comes down to what is considered optimized enough for the individual computer user. Some people are satisfied with what Microsoft has built into the OS and others are readily willing to take it a step further to personalize their machines. Furthermore, what we consider "running" is not what someone else considers running anymore.

Your entire post was one big "Windows 7 is better than XP and I heard from someone who heard from someone else who might have heard from a Microsoft employee that this is true". I'm really not fond of this new Apple-like fanatical following for 7.

 

Ouch! I actually got out my books to present a constructive reply.
I reported your post.

Book used:
System Software: An introduction to systems programming - by: Leland L. Beck. - Published by Pearson Education
Operating System - by Gary Nutt. - Published by - Pearson Education -- See chapter 11 and 12 -- Requires prior chapters to understand how a process is managed,. You can skip Chapter 8 & 9 as it talks about Semaphores and Monitors for protection program critical sections.
UNIX System Programming - by Keith Haviland, Dina Grary, Ben Salama - Published by Addison Wesley. - Trying -- Was not very helpful in explaining memory management, it barely mentioned it.

 

Alright, if you want to play that game then I'm going to report your post now too. I'm getting tired of the constant dumping on XP by yourself and others. You can read all the books you want to try and justify your points. I've used exponentially more configurations of hardware and software than books you've read. When it comes down to the original question about running less to save battery life you took the opportunity to add fuel to the OS turf war. The fact is that running around applying tweaks that worked in XP can only help battery life if it has any impact at all. Every little bit adds up over time especially in today's climate of enormous teams separated by differing interfaces that don't normally take the most efficient routes to get something done.

 

First and only warning. If you cannot play nice while discussion your opinions on whether XP or 7 is better, then you don't get to at all. Ok? Ok.

 

The memory compacting thing is certainly annoying. My parents' laptop does that. Works fine then suddenly it just starts paging hard. Then it's fine.

 

Is it me or is it that Windows 7 64bit uses more RAM? compared to 32bit?.. How to optimize this?

I use it on the same system noticably 200-300MB difference.. Hmm.. startup about 9XXMB used up for my lappy on 64bit and only 5XXMB used up for my desktop(I know drivers does plays different roles)..

 

That is correct, 64-bit Operating System in general, uses more memory, than the 32-bit version. There is no optimization for Windows Vista/7, other than having 3GB or more of RAM in your system, for either to be comfortable.

 

memory is there to be actively used. unused memory is wasted memory.

it's not the memory utilization of an os that matters. not at all.

it's how well that memory is used and how fast and intelligently the os releases that memory when a user app calls for it.

by that def, most 64 bit os appear to do a better job than an otherwise identical 32 bit os will.

 

Something for you guys to read from Windows Hardware Developer Central