Users Guide

Power Management Modes
The following section describes the various power management modes available in Windows.
Power management modes helps you reduce the power consumption of your computer by regulating power supply to the various
components. The system setup and the operating system allows you to configure when the power supply to certain components should
be reduced or cut off.
Some common power-saving states in Microsoft Windows are:
Table 2. Power-Saving States
Sleep Sleep is a power-saving state that allows a computer to quickly resume full-power operation (typically within
several seconds) when you want to start working again. Putting your computer into the sleep state is like pausing
a DVD player; the computer immediately stops what it is doing and is ready to start again when you want to
resume working.
Hibernation Hibernation is a power-saving state designed primarily for laptops. While sleep puts your work and settings in
memory and draws a small amount of power, hibernation puts your open documents and programs on your hard
disk, and then turns off your computer. Of all the power-saving states in Windows, hibernation uses the least
amount of power. On a laptop, use hibernation when you know that you would not use your laptop for an
extended period and would not have an opportunity to charge the battery during that time.
Hybrid sleep Hybrid sleep is designed primarily for desktop computers. Hybrid sleep is a combination of sleep and hibernate
states; it puts any open documents and programs in memory and on your hard disk, and then puts your computer
into a low-power state so that you can quickly resume your work. That way, if a power failure occurs, Windows
can restore your work from your hard disk. When hybrid sleep is turned on, putting your computer into sleep
automatically puts your computer into hybrid sleep. Hybrid sleep is typically turned on by default on desktop
computers.
Topics:
• Power Plans
Power Plans
A power plan is a collection of hardware and system settings that manages how your computer uses power. Power plans can help you
save energy, maximize system performance, or achieve a balance between the two.
Windows 8 and Windows 7 provide the following power plans:
1. Balanced
2. Power saver
3. High performance
4. Custom power plan
Windows 8.1 provides the following power plans:
1. Dell
2. Power saver
To select a particular power plan:
1. Click the power/battery icon on the taskbar.
NOTE:
The battery icon is available only in notebook computers.
2. Click More Power Options. A new window displaying the power options is displayed.
3. Select the power plan that you wish to change or select for your computer.
NOTE:
For more information about the configuration of your computer, go to Help and Support in your Windows
operating system and select the option to view information about your computer.
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