Make good use of ThinkPad power management software

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Make good use of ThinkPad power management software [Copy link]

ThinkPad notebooks have always been favored by enterprises and individual users. In addition to their good stability, durability and comfort, some personalized hardware design and matching software are also important factors. Now, let us experience the personalized style hidden in the "black brick" through the ThinkPad power management software, so that you can make good use of your power management software.

At present, the latest version of the power management program ThinkPad Power Manager is V1.1, and the download address is http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-58640 . The new version of the power management program has a simpler setting interface and is more convenient for users to operate.

View battery information

ThinkPad laptop computers have built-in dedicated power management chips in their batteries. The introduction of these dedicated chips not only makes power management more scientific and energy-efficient, but also allows users to easily understand the battery status and thus make better use of the battery.

After installing the driver and related software of the power management chip for the ThinkPad notebook, a green battery icon will appear on the taskbar. Click it and select "Launch Power Manager...". Select the "Battery Information" option in the "Power Manager" interface that appears (Figure 1). In this page, we can learn about the current status of the battery. Pay attention to the small battery icon in the upper left corner. If it is green, it means that the battery is in good performance; if it is yellow, it means that although the battery can still be used normally, the performance has declined; if it is red, it reminds the user that the battery is approaching the end of its service life and should be prepared to replace the battery.

Click the arrow icon in front of "Battery details...", and the detailed information of the battery will appear, including battery power percentage, capacity, voltage, temperature, number of charges, as well as parameters such as manufacturer, battery material and serial number. The content is quite detailed. For users, the two items that are of practical significance are the number of battery charges and the current capacity. Through these two parameters, we can understand the charging and discharging conditions of the battery. When purchasing second-hand batteries, you can also check these two parameters to understand the actual performance of the battery. For example, if a second-hand battery is charged 236 times and has a capacity of 21.63Wh, while its designed capacity is 47.52Wh, then this battery is not worth buying.

Custom power management scheme

ThinkPad Power Manager supports custom power management solutions. Users can create new power management solutions based on actual application scenarios to adapt to application requirements in various environments or working conditions.

Select "Power Scheme" on the "Power Manager" page (Figure 2), click the "New..." button on the page, and the interface for creating a power management scheme will appear (Figure 3). Enter the name of the new scheme after "Scheme name", such as "ThinkPad", and then set the CPU speed and display brightness in the two working states of "Battery settings" and "AC settings" according to the actual application. Click "Next" to enter the new scheme editing dialog box (Figure 4), where you can further set the power management in the first two working states, such as automatically shutting down the hard disk after the machine has been idle for a certain period of time, automatically reducing the brightness of the display or even shutting down the display, and putting the machine into standby mode, etc., to save power consumption and extend the working life of the display, hard disk and other hardware. After completing the creation of the new scheme, click the battery icon on the taskbar, select the new scheme named "ThinkPad" in the pop-up menu, and the new scheme can be enabled.

Normally, we can create multiple new power management schemes to meet the needs of different environments. For example, my ThinkPad T42 usually uses three power schemes. In addition to the default "Maximum Performance", I have customized two more schemes. One of the schemes runs at full speed and the display brightness is 4 levels (7 levels in total) when using AC power. When powered by battery, the CPU is reduced to half speed and the display brightness is 5 levels. This scheme is used in most normal operating environments; the other scheme forces the CPU to reduce the frequency (reduced to 600MHz) when using AC power and battery, and the display brightness is 4 levels. This scheme is mainly enabled when processing documents or when the ambient temperature is high (mainly to reduce the heat generated by the CPU in hot summer and improve the heat dissipation of the whole machine); and the system default "High System Performance" scheme (at this time, the CPU runs at full speed and the display brightness is maximum) is generally used when processing picture details and playing games.

Customize battery charging thresholds

Customized battery charging threshold is a new feature added to ThinkPad T42, T43, R50, R51, X40 and other models (previous models did not have this feature). This feature is very user-friendly and allows users to customize the starting percentage of battery charging to better use and maintain the battery.

Click the battery icon on the taskbar, select "Improve Battery Health", and enter the battery charge percentage after "Start charging when below" in the pop-up interface as needed (Figure 5). For example, if you enter 10%, if the battery charge is 50% at this time, the machine will not charge the battery even if the laptop is plugged into an AC power source (the original ThinkPad laptop will automatically charge when the battery charge is below 95%). The battery will only be charged when the charge drops below 10%. After this setting, the number of battery charging times in daily use will be significantly reduced, and the battery service life can be extended accordingly.