A notebook battery guide - Page 3

Originally Posted by Morpheus

Hey peeps... Great article! Only one thing that didn't become clear for me: What's best when using it mostly as a DTR?

1) Always use it with the charger connected (with the possible problems related with the battery being @ high temps)

or

2) Always charge it to 100%, use it without the charger connected, and when battery is close to be empty, recharge it (consuming charging cycles)


Thanks!!!

Originally Posted by amd-xile

For those with AMD processors, some extra degree of power management is available by downloading the latest processor drivers from the AMD website (link provided below). Oftentimes (as was the case with mine), the new laptop will have the WinXP processor driver installed--which doesn't have PowerNow! support.

PowerNow! allows automatic powering-down of devices not in use (so you don't have to manually enable/disable them thru the Control Panel as recommended in the article above, unless you want to, but the effect is [pretty much] the same). Supposedly it also helps with processor throttling. Unfortunately, it works partly thru XP's Power Management window, so it doesn't bypass OS control of power management, but augments it. I recommend it, though, to anyone with a Mobile AMD Athlon64.

Once installed, you can go to the Control Panel--> Device Manager & open the Properties window for the devices you want to micro-manage. In the Properties window, you will now have a "Power Management" tab for certain devices (including USB hubs, PCMCIA card slots, WiFi, etc.). The default setting is to power-off each device when not in use (there is a check-box at the bottom of the Power Management tab in the window, which you can check or un-check).

Example: Since I never use my PCMCIA slot, I manually disable it (you can see that in the first screenshot), rather than let PowerNow! choose when to turn it off. But I _occasionally_ use my Ethernet port so I let PowerNow! automatically manage those by right-clicking on the Ethernet controller in the Device Manager, then clicking on the Power Management tab, & checking the box that says "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power."





To install the new processor driver, simply download the .exe file & run it. I think the .exe file might be the same for all processors, but I'm not sure, so, to be safe, I'll give separate links for each processor. Somewhere in those pages you can also find a 'Cool & Quiet' driver for Linux, as well, but I don't think it works for Mobile chips yet.

Links (scroll part-way down & find Processor Driver 1.2.2.1 or 1.2.2.2 [1.2.2.1 is for 32-bit WinXP, 1.2.2.2 is for 64-bit WinXP]):
Mobile AMD Athlon64
Mobile AMD Sempron (32-bit)
Opteron 64
(non-mobile) Athlon64
AMD Turion 64
Dual Core Athlon 64

Note: once installed, the WinXP (32-bit) Device Manager will say that the Processor Driver revision is 1.2.2.0, but in fact it is the updated 1.2.2.1 [don't be put off by it]. Bon Apetit!~

Originally Posted by sirius

I've installed the Turion64 drivers from AMD. But except for the network card, it's not possible to throttle down or turn off any other devices in hardware manager. Only way is to deactivate manually.

Originally Posted by amd-xile

Interesting. You should now be able to control things like your CD/DVD drive, and maybe your wired (dial-up) modem as well, if you have one, and the firewire/LAN port, PCMCIA port, etc., using the Power Management tab. But not all devices will get a PM tab. The effectiveness of the new AMD drivers in any case will depend on your motherboard, i.e. the degree of control you get is dependent on whether the motherboard allows certain hardware to be powered down via software. Some things, like the USB ports on some laptops, including mine, are "always on" & there's nothing you can do about it. Other laptops I think you can turn off the USB ports.

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with your computer model, so I wouldn't know whether the new Turion driver is doing its job or not. You could try e-mailing AMD tech support or the tech support for the manufacturer of your computer (Asus?).



It's true, though, that the hardware manager route won't let you throttle/deactivate all of your hardware--some hardware just wasn't meant to be controlled that way. However, I'm surprised you can't control more of your hardware. Maybe you're missing a Cool'n'Quiet driver? Or maybe if you uninstalled, then reinstalled Cool'n'Quiet?

I should mention that several AMD drivers have just been updated for May 2006. The newer driver is no doubt the one you already downloaded, sirius, but I figure I should mention it for other readers.