Windows 7 Promises Improved Battery Life for Laptops
December 01, 2008 at 01:12:40 AM, by Sourabh Kalantri
Microsoft plans to prolong notebook's battery life by "parking" CPU cores, reducing power draw by components and more.
Microsoft is again trying to improve laptop battery with their upcoming Windows 7 OS. Microsoft is essentially trying to make it easier for system components to go into low power mode when in idle state.
Other key improvements include the ability to "park" CPU cores, "slumber" feature for SATA drives, powering down USB ports & controllers, and putting the Wi-Fi Card to sleep if enabled but not connected to a network.
Windows 7 will have a change in thinking about the system timer. Presently, Vista is set to 1ms but in Windows 7 it will be raised to 15ms which helps to reduce the power draw by 15%. Windows 7 laptops will also not wake up from sleep for applications that use 'wake timers'. For example: Open files from a network and CPU utilization won't stop the screen turning off, the hard drive spinning down and the system going to sleep when you haven't used the PC in a while; Windows 7 will only check for user input and applications like Media Center recording a long TV show. The screen will also dim to save power before turning off.
DVD experience on laptops is one which tests several power-hungry components including optical drive and graphics in one go. Microsoft will introduce specific changes in Windows 7 and new Windows Media Player to cache video in a buffer so it can spin down the DVD drive and reduce CPU power consumption.
Microsoft is working with system manufacturers to use energy troubleshooters across the system to check settings that affect battery life. Microsoft also plans to monitor power efficiency of laptops running Windows 7 anonymously and every two weeks.
Source: TechRadar
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Comments
Andrew at 01:17, December 01, 2008
Well isn't that sweet.
jberg at 02:08, December 01, 2008
Windows 7 should be offered as a free upgrade to dissapointed Vista users.
Andrew at 12:38, December 01, 2008
I totally agree.