Power settings should be adjusted primarily to conserve power (for desktop PCs), to conserve battery power (if it's a laptop), or to improve performance. Also important is the possibility of extending the life of individual PC elements, due to the optimal setting of the power plan.

To create your own power plan, do the following: go to the control panel (icon mode), go to “power”, in the left side column, click on the link “create a power plan”. In the window that appears, write the name of the plan you are creating (you can leave the default name “My custom plan 1”), and select the plan on the basis of which your own will be created, for a laptop it is better to choose “energy saving”, and for a desktop PC “balanced”, then click “next”.

A window will appear in which you will be asked to choose the amount of time the PC is idle before turning off the display, and before entering sleep mode.

Idle time is the time during which you do not perform any actions (mouse movement, key presses).

Some programs bypass these settings, for example, no matter how long you have before the display turns off, if you are watching a movie or playing a game (does not apply to all games), the display will still not turn off, this is done specifically for user convenience. Another example, this is a torrent client, the computer will not go into sleep mode while downloading or uploading files (if the corresponding option is not removed in the torrent client settings).

Set the value that you consider optimal for yourself. For example, I have 10 minutes to turn off the display, and 45 minutes to go to sleep. If you are working on a laptop, then it is better to set the time less.

When you have decided on the time, click "create". The power plan has been created, now you need to configure it.

Setting up a power plan

In order to configure it, click the link next to the created plan “Setting up a power plan”, in the window that opens, click the link “Change advanced power settings”. A window will open in which you can configure additional settings.

Click on the plus signs, and select the desired values. Everything is simple here, the settings speak for themselves and you should not have any difficulties, but a few points should be explained.

Require password on wakeup - ie. whether the system will ask for a password after waking up from sleep mode.

Hard drive - on a stationary PC, you should not enter too short intervals (less than 20 minutes) in order to avoid constant switching on and off.

Sleep - read about sleep, hibernation and hybrid sleep mode in detail.

PCI Express - as a rule, a video card is installed here.

Internet Explorer JavaScript timer frequency - this setting is available if you have Internet Explorer 9 installed. When working on a stationary PC, set “maximum performance”, when working on a laptop, “maximum power saving”.

After the settings are done, don't forget to click Ok. If there is such a need, you can always return the default parameters.

Setting up the Windows 7 power options is fairly simple and very easy to get to. In this article, I'll show you how to get into "Power Options" and which settings affect what.

By the way, I’ll immediately mention that on laptops, the “Power Options” section looks a little different, but the essence remains the same and you can get there the same way. It's just that it will be expanded: the possibility of two power settings will be added: one when the computer is running on battery power, the second - on battery power, and a screen brightness setting is also added.

Through the "Control Panel"

Click "Start" in the lower left corner of the screen and go to "Control Panel".

Find the "Power Options" section there.

How to Open Power Options Through the Start Menu

In fact, on Windows 7, you can open the power options by typing the word "Power Options" in the "Start" search bar and pressing either LMB on the "Power Options" program or "Enter".

How to set up power options in Windows 7

Before you appeared power supply modes, there are three of them.

1. Energy saving- a mode that greatly reduces the upper limit of the processor speed, giving preference to saving energy. In this mode, the computer will not be able to work quickly even when it is needed, but the battery will last much longer than usual.
2. Balanced- the golden mean between the cost of battery resources and PC performance. In this mode, the processor speed is not limited, but increases or decreases depending on the work currently being performed. If tasks require a really fast processor, it will work quickly. When this need is no longer needed, the processor slows down (does not waste resources in vain).
3. High performance- a mode that forces the processor to always work at its limit. This mode is characterized by a short battery life and faster processor wear, but sometimes, due to some features of the processor architecture, it really is worth turning it on, in general, the computer will work a little faster. But it is recommended to enable this mode only when it is really necessary. Before turning on, make sure that you need the computer to work faster, and not the Internet, for example. If you enable high performance, the download speed will not increase.

Now let's look at the tabs on the left. The ones highlighted in this screenshot lead to the same menu.

Here you can choose how much time of inactivity the computer will automatically turn off the display, and how long it will go into sleep mode. You can put "Never" there and there. In this case, the computer will work as usual until you turn it off yourself.

In it, you can choose what actions will be performed when you press the buttons responsible for turning the computer on and off, and also choose in which situations a password will be requested. The latter can only be performed by a user with administrator rights, and for this you must first click on "Change currently unavailable settings" (as you can see, initially the ability to change this setting is disabled).

The last item on the menu is "Create a power plan". This section allows you to select all settings related to the power supply and save them so that all settings selected in this way can be set with the touch of a button.

19.06.2009 21:15

In addition to standard power plans, Windows 7 provides the ability to fine-tune the power settings for the main devices of your computer.

Create a power plan

To create your power plan, open Control Panel -> Power Options and in the left menu click Create a power plan. Choose from the existing meal plans that are closest in settings to the one you want to create and enter the name of your plan. Click the button Further. On the next page, adjust the monitor off and sleep settings, and click Create.

Deleting a plan

To delete a power plan that you have created, make any other plan active and then next to the name of the plan you want to delete, click Setting up a power plan. On the page that opens, click Delete Plan. note that once deleted, the plan will not be recoverable. Standard plans are not deleted, you can only change their settings and restore the default settings.

Setting up a power plan

To change the settings of an existing plan, open Control Panel -> Power Options. Opposite the active plan (highlighted with a radio button), click Power plan settings -> Change advanced power settings.

Plan name

The very first line is a menu with the name of the power plan being edited (in our case, the plan is called the site). This menu sets the option to exit sleep mode, namely, we must choose whether it will be necessary to enter a password when the computer wakes up or not. Accordingly, in the drop-down list, select the value - Yes or Not.

HDD

Here you can adjust the idle time after which the computer's hard drives will automatically turn off. Downtime is indicated in minutes, you can set any value. If you want your computer's hard drives to never be turned off, then type 0 and press Apply to save changes.

Desktop background options

This drop-down menu allows you to disable or allow Windows 7 to allocate additional power to enable the ability to automatically change desktop background images (slideshows). If you choose the option Suspended, then regardless of the Personalization settings, desktop background images will not change. If you want the wallpaper to change, select the option Available and set up a slide show on the desktop in the menu Control Panel -> Personalization -> Desktop Wallpaper.

Wireless network adapter settings

Here you can adjust the power settings of the wireless network adapter. There are four options to choose from:

• Maximum performance
• Minimum energy saving
• Average energy saving
• Maximum energy saving

If you are not using a wireless network, set Maximum energy saving.

Dream

USB parameters

In this menu, you can enable or disable the temporary shutdown of the USB port.

Power buttons and cover

Specifies the action that the computer should take when the power button is pressed. Available options:

• Shutdown
• No action required

Processor power management

Use this menu to adjust cooling methods and processor load limits (in percent). It can be useful to set the maximum processor utilization to 95% if the processor is powerful, but often overheats, because the computer, for example, is in a hot room. If the maximum processor load is reduced by five percent, the performance decrease will be imperceptible, but the processor will stop overheating.

The CPU cooling policy has two meanings − Active and Passive. When Active is enabled Windows 7 will increase the fan speed before slowing down the processor. When the Passive option is enabled the processor will slow down first (by reducing the power supplied to the processor, its power is reduced), and then the fan speed will increase. In our opinion, it is better to choose the parameter Active.

Screen

Monitor Power Management Options - You can specify the idle time (in minutes) after which the monitor enters power-saving mode.

This menu allows you to adjust the settings for playing media files from your computer using Remote Media Streaming technology - on other computers over the network.

Separately, you can specify video playback options - with maximum quality(maximum power is used), with maximum performance(minimum supply is used) or select balanced mode.

Nutrition and performance

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Comments (27) on “Setting Power Options in Windows 7”

I have a problem with this function:

if you leave the computer for about 20 minutes. no action
he goes into hibernation

those. if you move the mouse, the screen lights up and the cursor moves,
but no functions work .. well, after a couple of minutes and the mouse "freezes"

i tried to disable sleep mode
and tried on the contrary to put a large number there .. like 500 min.

nothing helps .. it freezes after 20 minutes

Neither Vista nor XP had anything like this.
tried all versions of 7 x86
including non-self-assembly.. 7600 Ultimate E
plus all upgrades seven different KB .. with numbers

on different forums, 10 people complained that they also have a similar phenomenon,
but no one gives any clear explanation.

My motherboard is Gigabyte 965P DS3P

Interesting situation Ivanius. Haven't met before. Glukov has seen a lot, but he has not seen this.

Because I don’t see your computer and haven’t used your motherboard model, so far the only thing I can assume is that the problem is obviously related to sleep mode, but not only with it. In my experience, not all pieces of hardware are compatible with Windows 7 - on some pieces of hardware the system does indeed work with serious failures (for example, some ATI Radeon video cards). Plus, system errors can occur from incompatible software. Moreover, the software is harmless, but it only crumbles the core of the system.

Try a bare system for a few days to drive, with standard drivers and no software. Then, if possible, put on one program every two days and follow the changes. Well, try to disable sleep mode as it is written in our article. For some reason, it does not turn off for you and its parameters do not change, but remain the same, by default. Unsubscribe according to the results - perhaps solve the problem and help others.

first of all thank you very much for your reply
——————————————

secondly .. searching for a solution to the problem,
I came across a note that allegedly microsoft knows about this problem and is trying to solve it

thirdly, I already found and installed another version, also Ultimate but N
those. without WMP (media player) - now Total Commander "sees" SONY MP3 player
if WMP is higher than version 9. he seizes the initiative and does not give such an opportunity.

and a bunch of updates of all sorts of KB xxxxx with numbers

eventually:
it changed its behavior somewhat
those. in principle, I did something like you say - I drove a “naked” system
well, only ATI drivers (9.7 catalyst)

so that's what's curious .. if you forcefully tell her to "lie down!"
sorry - sleep! then she falls asleep
and easily, by double-clicking, goes back to normal mode without the slightest hitch

i.e. what state it falls into (?) is not entirely clear,
it turns out not in this (not in sleep, but not in hibernation)

but with a version change and updates, if left unattended for half an hour,
then that flows in and yet enters from this state, but not immediately.
thinks for a couple of minutes (3-5) .. and reacts more often to the Ctrl Alt Del keys than to the mouse,
green screen turns on
and from there you can return to normal life

now I'm researching what the mode in BIOS gives (there are S1 and S3)
but no stats yet.

to be continued

Asus mother, Intel Core 2Duo processor, nVidia 9500 graphics card, 2 gigabytes of memory, currently running WinXP SP3, periodically installed Win7 for the sake of interest and for the purpose of testing, and this is what I encountered, when idle for about 20-30 minutes, the computer crashes into a BSOD, the power saving mode is configured so that the display does not turn off, the disks do not turn off, sleep and hibernation are removed as unnecessary, I suspect that the system is stupidly not listening and is trying to either go to sleep or hibernate, and since all this is prohibited in the settings, blue screen, but this is guesswork, if this is at all possible, the OS is new all the same.

in the Control Panel there is a menu item Find and fix problems (or "Troubleshooting")
so I got into it .. and following the route .. it downloaded some next update to me

how it will manifest itself, I don't know yet
but in the settings one more item was formed:

Allow hybrid sleep (allow some joint sleeping)

It turns out that there is.
Well, I also refused this - “do not sleep!” our motto

That's right, in Windows 7 there are only 3 power saving modes:

Sleeping mode, in which open programs and files are stored in RAM;
hibernation mode, in which open programs and files are saved to the hard drive in the hiberfil.sys file and provide greater energy savings;
Hybrid mode.

I didn’t want to publish an article about the troubleshooter - I thought everyone knew. I'll probably post it.

I didn’t want to publish an article about the troubleshooter - I thought everyone knew.
I'll probably post it.

well you give! from where! - I'm not a programmer (artist)
of course publish

and those who know. well don't read

however, this third mode somehow lit up in the settings
I gave him "NO", he was offended and disappeared

more precisely after your command: powercfg.exe /hibernate off
and the huber.sys file disappeared (no less than 1 GB!)
and this column in the Allow hybrid sleep settings has disappeared

PS
I'll be getting invitations soon
to all sorts of symposiums on energy conservation

That's right, hiberfil.sys is in theory equal to the amount of RAM - after all, sleep mode (hibernation) saves all the contents of RAM to this file for the time that the computer goes into hibernation. In the Russian localization of Windows 7, the hibernation mode is called "Sleep Mode", this introduces some confusion with the "Sleep" mode. I am already writing an article about the difference between “Sleep”, “Hybrid sleep” and “Sleep mode” (hibernation) and will publish it in the coming days. Thanks for the questions!

thanks for answers

but I have problems with Russian names
(I am completely fluent in English)
and avoid installing any Russified software,
not because of Russophobia
namely because of these inconsistencies (unsettled terminology)

Hello, I’m talking about the sleep mode, for example, when you disconnect the Internet cable and don’t touch it for 20 minutes, it goes into sleep mode, and it responds very quickly, when the Internet cable is connected it works without turning off, I think there is some kind of process that is responsible for the work modes. By the way, on a laptop, you don’t want to go into sleep mode, as it was on XP, you just need to force the power button

Vadim, welcome to the site "Windows 7 - Impressions and Facts"!

1. Most likely, you have wake-up from LAN enabled in your BIOS.
2. Hibernation in XP and Hibernation in Windows 7 are not the same thing.

The power saving mode in Windows 7 is too economical. If no sound is used for some time, then Windows disables the sound chip (I have a built-in SoundMax sound card). Therefore, when sound should be played after such an idle time of the sound card, then first there is a delay of 3 seconds, which is necessary to turn on the sound card, and not very good crackling sounds in the speakers.

Yuri, I have the same problem. And there is a profile "High performance". And if for "IEEE 1394" there is a "power management" tab, then for soundmax there is no such

I have a power off problem. Sleep disabled, hibernation disabled, power button action - shutdown. As a result: the session ends, the system is unloaded, the monitor goes out. The indicators on the system unit remain lit, but glow dimly. The fans (of the case and the power supply, for sure, I can’t vouch for the internal ones (processor and on the motherboard) continue to work (probably at reduced speeds, since the general noise of the computer subsides). To completely turn off the work, it remains as an output only to manually turn off the power supply toggle switch on the system unit case. And only then everything stops.

On the "On" button there is no reaction on the case, when you press the reset button, the computer starts up normally. Everything goes according to the full program and regularly: hardware and memory autotests and then Windows starts.

I broke my head in what could be the matter, where I didn’t set it up, what I went too far in. Where to dig?!

problem with disabling disks. in XP, this function works. HELP!!

set for 1 minute - screensaver, for 5 - turn off the screen, for 20 - turn off the screws. but none of this happens. Am I missing something somewhere?

I have problems installing different versions of Windows7 and each had the same error after a while from 30 minutes to 1.30 hours the monitor goes out and there is no signal. And all computer functions work (there is sound if the movie was on), etc. Only a reset helps and the story repeats every time I tried to look for a problem and did not find it, even turning everything off in the power supply did not help

The situation is described by Ivanius with a bow:
08/04/2009 at 23:57

A similar problem was solved by installing a more powerful power supply -
when the whole system came to life at once, there was not enough amperage to lift everything that was hung (and a lot was hung). Now stands Chieftec APS-550S

Hello !!! I have such a question how and where to disable the closing of network connections in sleep mode ?!

Tell me please. In the item "processor power management" I only have the line "system cooling policy". Is the rest included somewhere separately or does it depend on the version / assembly and may be absent altogether? Thanks in advance for your reply =)

=.genius=, on some motherboards (especially old ones), unfortunately, so.

Then if it does not complicate, another question. In the properties of the keyboard and mouse, I saw the item "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power", but it is blocked. What can be done? Or is it again dependent on the iron =(

Can you help? When you turn off the monitor (with all cords), there is an inconvenience:
I go through the radmin to this computer, and win7 itself changed the resolution, and the monitor disappeared from the list of devices. Moreover, the resolution was made small, it cannot be changed in any way, and the radmin window I have is less than the resolution of the computer from which I log in (radmin window is 1024x780, and the resolution of the monica on which they work is 1280x1024).

What to do? Is it possible to make sure that the monitor does not disappear when it is turned off and all the settings do not collapse?

A question of such a plan: every 50-60 seconds the monitor goes into sleep mode. In the old Piggy, this issue was resolved quickly, but in the 7th it does not work out that way.
In the power settings, I already changed different “power plans”, changed the parameters of these “plans” - the result is zero, with 15 minutes set, it turns off after 1 minute, with 30 minutes set it still turns off after 1 minute.
Please tell me how to change this situation? Thanks in advance

Help me figure it out - the laptop will turn on spontaneously at night. I've looked all over and can't find the reason...

Andrew, in the BIOS power options, disable wake-up from LAN, from the mouse, from the keyboard, and in general from all devices. In general, such questions should be discussed on the forum, and not in the comments.

A power plan is a set of settings that specifies how your computer uses power.

The Windows operating system comes with three default power plans: Balanced, High Performance, and Energy Saving. Each of these plans provides a specific version of the computer's operation, in terms of its electricity consumption. From the names of these plans, it is not difficult to guess that the energy-saving plan uses electricity more economically and the bill for it will be a little less. But the balanced mode will consume a little more energy.

It seems that the choice of energy-saving mode is very justified. But this is so, if you do not know the other side of the coin. The less current is supplied to the processor, hard drive, video cards, the weaker they work. The less electricity is supplied to the cooler, the higher the temperature inside the system unit or laptop, which in turn can cause premature failure. You can completely turn off the backlight of the screen in order to save money, only in this case you are unlikely to see anything on it!

Therefore, to give the user a choice between performance and economy, Windows has three power plans. A high-performance power plan does not limit the hardware resources of your computer in any way. To the detriment of savings, you get good computer speed. On the other hand, there is a power-saving mode, which slightly reduces the operating potential of the hardware, but saves electricity. The compromise between them is a balanced power supply mode, which has a little from one and the other. And it is he who is selected as the default power plan.

You can change your power plan at:

1. Control Panel
2. system and safety
3. Power supply.

If you don't like Microsoft's power plan, you are free to create your own power plan (discussed below). Also, some hardware manufacturers may supply their own power plans, so feel free to use them.

Advanced Windows power plan settings

In addition to being able to choose from three default power plans, /sleep, screen backlight settings, you can customize your computer's power plan more carefully. For this, it is used Advanced power plan settings. Using them, you can configure many additional parameters, up to limiting the maximum performance of the processor and its cooler.

The above settings (advanced settings) are different for each of the three available power plans. By reviewing and comparing each of them with each other, you will find out which settings are set for the balanced, which for the high-performance, and which settings for the economical power plan. But your possibilities do not end with viewing and comparison. You can change the available settings for these plans to suit your needs. You don't have to worry about breaking anything. Reverting the default settings is a matter of one click.

In order to get to the advanced settings of the power plan, you need to go to Control Panel - System and Security - Power Options. In the window that opens, you need to select one of the three power plans available by default and click the button Setting the power plan, which stands opposite each of the plans. In the opened window Changing Schematic Options click Change advanced power settings. If the settings listed in the first paragraph are available to any user, then the last key will skip further only those users who have administrative rights.

In the opened window Power supply, with a single tab Extra options, and you can configure advanced power plan settings. If in the previous step you did not select the power plan that you would like to change, then you are free to do this in this window. Also, in the same window you can return the default settings. I hope that you will not have any difficulties in changing the parameters, so I will not talk about it, but rather list the most interesting settings available.

• Turn off hard drive. You can specify a period of inactivity after which the hard disk is turned off.
• Desktop Options. You can set up a slide show.
• Wireless network adapter settings. You can limit the maximum performance of the wireless network adapter.
• Dream. Sets the time of inactivity after which the computer enters sleep or other mode.
• USB parameters. You can turn off the USB power.
• Processor power management. You can limit the maximum performance of the processor and its cooler.
• Battery. Setting the action when reaching a low and critical battery level.

These are, and not only these, there are options for setting up a power plan.

Additional methods for setting up a power plan

We have already covered one way to set up a power plan using the Control Panel. Next, we'll talk about how to do the same using policies and the command line.

Let's start with politicians. Power related policies are located under

1. Computer configuration
2. Administrative Templates
3. System
4. Power Management

And this node, if anyone does not know, is located in the Local Group Policy Editor ( gpedit.msc). These policies are packaged in 5 folders according to their semantic content and allow you to make all the settings that can be done through the Control Panel. However, in the folder Sleep settings There are several policies that cannot be set through the Control Panel:

• Allow apps to prevent automatic sleep.
• Allow automatic hibernation with open network files.
• Allow applications to prevent the system from going to sleep.

As you can see, they set up permissions for the computer to go to sleep and specify a list of possible restrictions.

The second method of setting up power plans, although already the third in a row, is the command line. More specifically, the command line utility powercfg.exe. I didn’t specify, but I’m more than sure that the cfg in the utility name is configuration. Total - power configuration. As always, the more difficult the tool to use, the more options it provides. And here it is the same. The powercfg.exe utility allows you to configure everything that the Control Panel and local policies combined are capable of. In addition, powercfg.exe allows you to configure the computer to wake up from sleep mode under the influence of specific devices. Well, the most worthwhile feature of the utility is its ability to export and import power plans, which will be useful to propagate a specially configured power plan to other computers that are not joined to a domain. In the case of a domain, local AD DS policies and capabilities will do the job brilliantly. And finally, the list of parameters of the powercfg.exe utility. Remember that you are always free to call up help directly on the command line, just by adding "/?" after the utility name.

powercfg.exe -list

Display all power plans.

powercfg.exe -query

Displays the settings for the selected power plan.

powercfg.exe -change

Change of some parameter.

powercfg.exe -hibernate

Turn hibernation on and off.

powercfg.exe -devicequery

Display devices that can wake up the computer.

powercfg.exe -diveceenablewake/-divecedisablewake<устройство>

Allow or prevent the computer from waking up for the selected device.

powercfg.exe -import/-export

Import and export power settings.

powercfg.exe -energy

Battery report.

Create your own power plan in Windows

We have already talked about how to choose one of the three available default power plans, how to change their settings to suit your needs. But if you can't please, then create your own power plan.

In essence, creating your own power plan is the same as setting up one of the three default power plans in Windows. A new power plan is even created based on one of them. You take one of three power plans, customize it to your heart's content, and save it with your own name. And now, along with the three main plans, there is the 4th, your own. And maybe already the 5th in a row, or even more.

But what is the use of this venture? After all, we can set up any other default plan in the same way. The difference will be only in the name. So why would he need it?

Firstly, for those who do not want to be held hostage to the default settings and want to stand out with their “own” meal plan. Kidding. But anyway!
Second, for quantity. Three power plans are good options that can be relevant in any situation and in any place. In any place, your laptop's charging can approach zero, and to somehow keep it afloat for an extra time, use the power saving mode. And just as anywhere you may need maximum performance - you should choose a high-performance power plan. I mean, these modes are like shoes - each of them is needed depending on the situation (weather). Therefore, throwing away winter shoes is not an option. And just don't change the default power plans, they can come in handy!

But your own plan can come in handy too! So create it separately. Winter, summer, autumn and spring shoes are the basis. But fins are a rarity! And in the same scenario, a power plan where wireless is off, USB is off, all effects and processor performance is at a minimum is perfect for reading a book in front of a laptop screen. Unless, of course, you use a laptop as a reader, then there is not much point in removing power plans by default.

If convinced, and you need your own power plan, then climb into Control Panel - System and Security - Power Options - Create a power plan. Next, select one of the three meal plans you want to create a new plan based on, enter a name for the plan. On the next page, click Create. Now, next to the three main meal plans, you will find yours. Next is the setting discussed above.

By default, Windows uses a balanced power plan on all computers. But there are also "Power saver" and "High performance" schemes, and computer manufacturers sometimes create their own schemes. What is the difference between them all and does it make sense to change the power supply scheme?

How to view and change the power plan

First, let's see which scheme is selected. In Windows 10, to do this, right-click on the battery icon in the system tray and select the Power Options option.

The settings can also be accessed through the Control Panel. Navigate to the Hardware and Sound category and click on the Power Options link.

Here you can select the power plan. The default options are "Balanced" and "Energy Saver" and the "High Performance" scheme is hidden under "Show additional plans". Your computer manufacturer can add your own schemas to the list, or you can create your own.

What is the difference?

Each of the schemes, in fact, is a set of parameters. Instead of configuring each of them individually, the schemes make it easy to change settings as a group. For example:

Balanced Circuit automatically increases the processor frequency when necessary, and reduces when the load on the processor decreases. This scheme is selected by default and is suitable in most cases.

"Energy Saving" Helps reduce power consumption by continuously reducing CPU frequency, screen brightness, and a number of other metrics.

"High performance" keeps the processor frequency at the same level even when idle and increases the brightness of the screen, and disables the power saving mode for other components, including the hard drive and Wi-Fi adapter.

But relying on our brief descriptions is not necessary - you can see with your own eyes how different power schemes work. In the Power Options window, click the Change plan settings link next to the name of the selected plan, and in the next window, click the Change advanced power settings link. Using the drop-down menu at the top of the dialog box that appears, you can switch between different power plans to see all the settings in each of them.

Does it make sense to change the power scheme?

It is not necessary to change the power settings at all. A balanced scheme is suitable in the vast majority of cases. Even if you want to extend your laptop's battery life, you can simply manually lower the screen brightness. Unless your computer is running resource-hungry software, most modern processors still automatically go into power-saving mode when idle. Well, when using demanding software, Windows itself increases the frequency of the processor, so even if you are supposed to play advanced games on your computer, you can leave a balanced power scheme. When you start the game, the processor will run at full capacity.

On laptops, each power plan has different settings depending on whether the device is running on battery or plugged in. In the balanced scheme, the settings when connected to the mains are quite aggressive - the fans, for example, run at full power to effectively cool the processor. To use the same settings when running on battery, you can select the High Performance scheme, but in reality the performance gain will not be that noticeable.

In Windows 7 and 8, you can switch between the "Balanced" and "Energy Saving" schemes by left-clicking on the battery icon in the system tray. In Windows 10, when you click on the battery icon, only brightness adjustment and Battery Saver mode are available. This mode is a great alternative to the Power Saver scheme as it lowers the screen brightness, which can significantly reduce power consumption even on modern computers. This mode also prevents apps from the Windows 10 store from running in the background, but this is only useful if you actively use these apps instead of traditional desktop programs.

The great thing is that the Battery Saver mode turns on automatically when 20% of the battery remains (this figure can be adjusted manually). This eliminates the need to switch between power plans manually.

In Windows 10, power plans are hidden deep in the Control Panel, since there is no need to use them. Moreover, on modern computers with InstantGo technology, which puts the PC into sleep mode like a smartphone or tablet, by default there is only a balanced power plan. There are no "Energy Saving" and "High Performance" schemes, although you can create them manually. But Microsoft believes there is no need for users to fiddle with power settings on modern computers.

How to create your own schema

Although there is no particular need to switch between power plans, this feature can still come in handy. Settings such as screen brightness, display timeout, and computer sleep time are directly related to power plans.

To change the scheme settings, open the "Power Options" section in the Control Panel and click the "Setting the power scheme" link. In the window that opens, you can change the brightness of the screen, the time the display turns off and the time to enter sleep mode, and you can select different settings for mains and battery operation.

Additional power settings, which can be changed via the corresponding link, are also related to the power plan. There are simple settings here, such as the action of the power button, and more advanced ones, such as whether the computer is allowed to wake up on a timer. You can also set hard drives, USB devices, and the Wi-Fi adapter to power-save mode, where they consume much less power when idle.

Some of the settings may come in handy when diagnosing problems. For example, if the Wi-Fi connection is unstable, you can turn off the power saving mode in the Wireless Adapter Settings so that it does not go into sleep mode. In a similar way, you can solve the problem with the unstable operation of USB devices.

Thus, it makes sense to adjust the settings of the balanced power plan. But it is not necessary to switch between schemes at all.

Even on a gaming PC, it makes no sense to enable the "High Performance" scheme. The processor will not work faster from this. It already automatically switches to the maximum frequency when launching demanding games. And with the High Performance scheme selected, the processor will simply work longer at this maximum frequency and, accordingly, produce more heat and noise.

For almost all users, the best advice is to forget about the existence of power schemes altogether. Leave a balanced circuit - this is quite enough.