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If you're going to go down any rabbit hole for improvements, using task manager to identify what is running and asking why it is running and doing something about it will yield far greater improvement than tweaking the power management settings whilst all of that stuff runs.
Ah, that makes sense will look into that 👍
@ectoplasmosis just got a couple of smart plugs to measure energy use, and unrelatedly a CD drive to archive CDs, and realising that the PC uses almost the same amount of power whilst just ripping a CD, as it does whilst playing games.
I'm resigned to games being a relatively large power sink, but wondered if I could optimise general power usage for when I'm just browsing or doing other non-GPU bound tasks
branwen-
the PC uses almost the same amount of power whilst just ripping a CD, as it does whilst playing games
beyond a bright laptop monitor, the major sources of power use:
- GPU (gaming or other sustained GPU load)
- optical drives (high speed motors and lasers!)
I hadn't considered other people run optical drives still, but I do for ripping music and video, and yes they consume a very healthy amount of power. Typically they have their own power supply, but if not they tend to use 2 USB ports at a time and try to draw max power from both.
- GPU (gaming or other sustained GPU load)
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Process explorer will help too.
Velocio
lynx
Power management on Windows is typically very good out of the box on the defaults, yeah you can squeeze a little more from it but it tends to surpass even Macs.
Beyond the obvious (dimming the screen of a laptop as a display brightly lit uses a high % of the power) the difference is not usually the power management settings, but what software is running. Windows can include a degree of bloat or convenience things, and the more software that is running the more the power is sapped.
For example, Edge browser is probably running in the background even if you're using Firefox or Chrome, and you need to start Edge and then go to
Settings > Systems and Performanceand then disableStartup boostandContinue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed... doing that stops one huge executable from loading when the OS starts and permanently running in the background.If you're going to go down any rabbit hole for improvements, using task manager to identify what is running and asking why it is running and doing something about it will yield far greater improvement than tweaking the power management settings whilst all of that stuff runs.