AC means when connected to an external power source, and Battery means when running on the portable's battery.Īdapt: CPU speed varies with load (high when busy, low when idle)ĭegrade: CPU starts at low speed and performs additional performance reduction as battery dischargesįor example, a Pentium III-M processor that typically operates at 800MHz on electric current might throttle back to 500MHz when running on battery power, to save battery life. Below is a table explaining how a portable CPU would behave. There's another issue that's not very clear: If you are using a portable computer your CPU speed is affected by changing the power management features (at least some of the more recent CPU's which use Intel SpeedStep technology). When you return to use your computer, simply press a key, or move the mouse, and your monitor and hard drives will come back to life. If you enable power management features, remember that these settings are only for when your computer is idle.
You can access the power management features from the Windows XP Control Panel under Performance & Maintenance > Power Options. You can make changes to the default settings, and save them either to the scheme currently selected, or save them under a new name.