Staff Desktop XP
Power Management in Windows XP
Windows XP provides several ways to manage the power consumed by your laptop—or your desktop.
Power Options in Windows XP allow you to control the power management features of:
-
Your display.
-
Your hard drive.
-
Shut Down, Hibernate, and Stand by.
Managing the Monitor
It's a good idea to shut off the display when you're not using it, even when you're running a desktop computer. Although laptop displays don't use as much power, it's still a relatively big power consumer.
Reducing Power Consumption by the Hard Drive
The two biggest users of power on your laptop are the display and the hard drive. Windows XP lets you tell your hard drive to stop spinning when you're not actively using it, allowing you to save energy and battery power.
Putting the Computer on Standby or Hibernate
There are two basic options for putting your laptop to sleep when you're not using it, but don't want to completely shut it down—Standby or Hibernate.
Standby is energy conserving, because your entire computer switches to a low-power state. Devices such as the monitor and hard disks turn off, and your computer uses less power. It's easy to return to work, because Standby leaves applications and files open on your desktop. Standby is perfect when you're going to be taking a break, and you want to quickly pick up exactly where you left off.
Hibernate mode saves what you're currently working on to a special file on your hard drive, and then shuts your computer almost completely off. Hibernate takes longer to resume than Standby, since you must go through the normal Start-up process, by pressing the power button on the PC. The advantage is that you can leave your laptop in Hibernate mode for days without any adverse effects. When you start it back up, you'll see everything exactly as you left it. This feature is disabled on the Staff Desktop Service and can only be enabled after login in with Administrator privileges (see instructions below). We did this because if you do not re-boot you do not get patches: if you use Hibernate you must re-boot reasonably regularly.
Click Start then Shut Down. The menu will present the options to Stand By, Turn Off, or Restart your computer. To put your computer into Hibernate mode (if this feature has been enabled - see the end of this page), click Start, and then click Turn off computer. Press and hold the Shift key. The label under the first button changes from Stand By to Hibernate. Click Hibernate.
Configuring Power Settings
Using Power Options in the Control Panel, you can adjust any power management option that your computer's hardware configuration supports. Because these options may vary widely from computer to computer, the options described may differ from what you see. Power Options automatically detects what is available on your computer and shows you only the options that you can control. To configure your power settings:
-
Click Start, click Control Panel, click Power Options.
-
Or, if you see the little battery indicator (generally on laptops) on your task bar, right-click it and then click Adjust Power Properties. The Power Options Properties dialog box opens as shown.
Note: This is taken from a Staff Desktop Service laptop, thus it has a power scheme for batteries; this will not be the case with Desktop PCs.
-
In the Power Options dialog box, you set options for a power scheme. Windows XP comes with several preconfigured profiles. We've shown the default profile for Staff Desktop Service laptops above, but you can easily create custom profiles that fine tune the properties for your particular circumstances. You can create a new power scheme by clicking the time settings you want, then clicking Apply.
Enabling Hibernation Mode
If your PC doesn't have Hibernate enabled, it's easy to enable it. After loging in as an Administrator, open the Power Options Properties dialog box and click the Hibernate tab.
Ensure that Enable hibernationis slected, and click OK.