Why is it called a laptop if you have to keep it plugged in for top performance? I called Best Buy and they told me to expect slower performance to save the battery. Doesnt that contradict the reason for having a laptop in the first place?
2007-11-11 02:33:33 · 7 answers · asked by Marion C 3 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Laptops & Notebooks
It is normal for a laptop to be configured to "throttle back" the CPU and lower screen brightness when running on battery to help prolong th elife of battery.
After all unless you are doing some serious stuff, you DO NOT need all the power anyway.
If it was run a full power on battery, the batery life would be cut by between 20 and 50 % depending on settings and system.
2007-11-11 02:42:42 · answer #1 · answered by stu_the_kilted_scot 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
its normal behavior for a laptop to go into a battery saving mode when unplugged. Performance may not be that important to you if you're on an airplane for 6 hours typing memos in a word processor.
it can be overridden in the power settings of windows (usually a button on the screen saver page). Expect shorter battery life if you do this though.
Other things you can tweak here are screen brightness, disk drive sleep times, and system sleep times. All of these are to conserve power for the battery.
2007-11-11 10:42:36 · answer #2 · answered by Mickey P 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it's partially correct...
cpu manufactureres have put in place power saving features, so as to conserve the little amount of battery a laptop has
Intel was the first to do so with it's Intel SpeedStep Technology, first introuduced in Pentium III-M... however, this is not a very good feature as the cpu would run at the lowest clock speed when on battery power, and run at full speed when AC power is avaliable... the sales person at Best Buy is probably referring to this
Intel realized that such a feature, though conserves battery, is not perfect... wad if u require full cpu power when the laptop runs on battery? so Intel came up with the Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology, more commonly know as EIST, for the Pentium-M... this allows the cpu clock speed to be adjusted dynamically as and when resource is required, the multipler can be adjusted at an increment of x1 (eg Pentium-M 725, 1.6GHz, 400MHz FSB... the base frequency is 100MHz, and the multiplier ranges from x6 to x16, thus the clock speed ranges from 600MHz (100x6) to 1.6GHz (100x16))... EIST is enabled even when AC power is avaliable, and u hardly notice the difference
Intel realized that it is so good, and they later implement it in desktop cpu as well, so as to reduce power consumption, and now it is present in all Intel's cpu
CPU with EIST
Pentium M
Pentium 4 500/600 series
Pentium D / Extreme Edition 800/900 series
Core T2000/T1000 series
Pentium Dual Core E2000/T2000 series
Core 2 T7000/T5000/Q6000/E6000/E4000 series
AMD has a similar feature called Cool n' Quiet
2007-11-11 11:58:31 · answer #3 · answered by Astria 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That is only party true. When unplugged, your laptop will have all the normal features and everything, but will probably not be as bright or the sound may not be as loud, this is simply to save battery life. You can change that though through the menus.
2007-11-11 10:42:28 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Some laptops have a setting that you can tell it, "Full performance" when it's unplugged. The well known OSs that have this are Windows 2000, XP, and Mac OS X.
2007-11-11 10:40:10 · answer #5 · answered by Tom 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
you can go into the settings and set it to run at full performance but this will eat into your battery life, how you set it is up to you, they are called laptops because they are portable and can be used on your lap if needs be, i have mine set to maximize the battery life but i can change it if i want
2007-11-11 10:42:42 · answer #6 · answered by D McC 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That is incorrect.
If you run on battery, it should give you the same performance.
2007-11-11 10:43:16 · answer #7 · answered by xxtx345 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋