|
Managing Power Options
Power is pretty much taken for granted with a computer.
As long as the electric bill is paid, the outlet is working
and the system fires up when the power button is pressed,
then all is well. To a point, that's true, but there are
situations where power settings can make for a better user
experience, especially if you're on a laptop rather than a
desktop system.
To access Power Options Properties, right click an open
area of the desktop and click Properties to open the Display
Properties dialog box. Click the Screen Saver tab followed
by the Power button and the Power Options Properties dialog
box will open. There is a good possibility that the tabs you
see at the top of the dialog box may be different than those
shown in the screen capture below. They vary depending on
the type of system involved, whether the system has a
battery, if a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) is
connected, and whether or not the system is ACPI compliant.
In all cases though the Power Schemes tab will be present
and that's the focus of this article.
There are a number of different Power Schemes available via
the drop down box in the top section of the dialog box. Each
scheme is designed to accommodate a specific type of system
use. Click on each one and study the changes it makes in the
four drop down boxes relating to the system monitor, hard
disks, standby and hibernation modes. One of the
preconfigured schemes may very well fit your needs.
If none of the presets are suitable you can create a custom
scheme by manually configuring the settings. Once the
settings have been configured, click Save As... and give the
new power scheme a name as shown in the screen capture
below. At the beginning of this article I
mentioned that the Power Options Properties might have a
different tab layout than what you see on your screen.
Compare the first screen capture with the one below and
you'll see substantial differences, the biggest one being
the Settings area for the power scheme is divided into two
sections; Plugged In and Running On Batteries. Even though
this system is not a battery powered laptop, it does have a
Uninterruptible Power Supply connected. As long as the
system is plugged in to an electrical supply the items in
the Plugged In column apply. If the power fails, the plugged
is accidentally removed, or some other unforeseen
circumstance occurs to interrupt the normal supply of power
then the UPS kicks in and the settings in the Running On
Batteries column take precedence.
 |
