Creating a Custom Power Management Plan
Most modern computers allow Windows to control both the computer itself (including the hard drive) and the display monitor. These components can be set to automatically "turn off" after varying amounts of inactivity. If you the pre-defined power management plans in Windows don't meet your needs, you can create your own custom plan. Follow these steps:
- Display the Control Panel.
- At the left side of the screen click the Hardware and Sound heading. Windows displays the Hardware and Sound screen.
- Under the category of Power Options, click the Change Power-Saving Settings option. Windows displays the Power Options screen. (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1. The Power Options screen.
- At the left side of the screen click Create a Power Plan. Windows displays the Create a Power Plan screen. (See Figure 2.)
Figure 2. The Create a Power Plan screen.
- Pick one of the existing power management plans (Balanced, Power Saver, or High Performance) as the starting point for your new power plan.
- Specify a name for your power plan.
- Click Next. Windows displays the Edit Plan Settings screen. (See Figure 3.)
Figure 3. The Edit Plan Settings screen.
- Use the controls on the screen to specify when Windows should turn off the display and put the computer to sleep. (Remember that the times represent periods of activity, so 10 minutes means that the device is turned off when you stop using the computer for 10 minutes.)
- Click Create.
This tip (10717) applies to Windows 7 and 8.
Author Bio
Allen Wyatt
With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...
Deleting Commented Text
Word allows you to add comments to your document to aid in the development of the document. At some point you may want to ...
Discover More
Locking Icons on the Desktop
Your desktop is supposed to be place where you can put your most-often-used program and file icons. You can spend hours ...
Discover More
Changing How Changes are Noted in Word
Do you want to modify how Word marks changes in your document? It's easy to do, if you know where to look.
Discover More
Estimating Battery Life
The battery in your laptop provides the power you need to even use the system. As you use your laptop, you may notice that it ...
Discover More
Using Powercfg to Query an Existing Power Scheme
This tip shows you how to use the command-line Powercfg utility to query a given power scheme from your current environment.
Discover More
Using Powercfg to Export and Import a Power Scheme
You can export to a file your power schemes and then import them later on. The only caveat is that you must be running as ...
Discover More
Comments