XP on Laptops

Battery power may drain more quickly than you expect on a Windows XP
SP2-based portable computer - read more here:

BunnyHare...

Not sure I understood all that. Don't think the battery on my laptop is
draining faster than normal but then I don't have anything to compare it
with

MCC...

Now that should be useful too. Thanks for the link.

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

My pleasure - hope it is of use to anyone with a laptop.

datasmog...

That's a strange bit of gobledegook.
It says, in plain English, that certain factors may prevent the machine
from going to sleep properly. i.e hibernation or whatever it's called in
Windows speak (we discussed this a while back).
It's not uncommon for USB devices to cause this.

pmj...

Ray, you seem to be getting Confuzzled & mixed up about "Hibernation"
in windoze (XP) Machines...

Hibernation *isn't* anything at all to do with "Sleep" (or Standby")
Mode - Hibernation is something completely different.

When a PC is Set to "Hibernate" (which means that it - the Motherboard
& all the Peripherals - has to be fully ACPI Compliant & the Hibernation
Option has to be Enabled in the Power Settings), the contents of the RAM
Memory is Saved to the Hard Disk & then the Power is turned off
*completely* - that's nothing like "Standby", where the Power remains
on & the RAM Memory stays active.

& also, "Standby" Mode is different from what that Article is referring
to - that Article is talking about the way that some peripherals (& the
Operatin gSystem & Drivers) handles the *Processor* Idle States.

Modern Processors can switch to a sort of "Low Power Consumption" Mode,
when the full Processing Power & Speed isn't needed, but that means
that the Drivers & Peripherals need to properly support it.

The fixes mentioned in the article will as far as I can see have no
effect on the battery life while using the machine.

pmj...

Yesw, they will, under certain conditions (see above) - they are
related to problems in the way that some (USB) Devices & Drivers don't
work properly with the Processor Idle state.

Turn down the screen brightness, switch off fancy graphical effects,
sound, Bluetooth, Wireless etc, minimise hard drive and optical drive
access, these will extend the battery life and possibly enable you to

pmj...

Yep!!!
All of those things will Save Battery Power!

But that's all in *addition* to the various ways that Battery Power
can also be Saved by the Operating System making use of the facility
that the *Processor* has regarding the Processor Idle state.

finish off the next chapter of your next airport blockbuster or get to
the end of the film.

If your problem is the machine not sleeping properly then unplug each
peripheral device in turn until you find the culprit.

pmj...

Yep, that's all good stuff, but that's not the problem that that
Article on the M$KB is referring to.

Better than installing yet another Microsoft bug fix.

pmj...

If the System isn't handling the *Processor* Idle state correctly
(& that's nothing to do with Standby Mode & again both of those are
completely different from Hibernation.) then those "Bug fixes" my
well Help!

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

I don't have a laptop Ray - I just thought that those who do might find the
page informative, or even useful. Just trying to help after seeing an
acquaintance getting all het up last week when she started losing power from
her laptop battery long before she expected to.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918005