Acer Aspire 5100 Power Mgt questions...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Blue Streak
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Blue Streak

Hi, folks!

The other day I picked up a new laptop. I have no programs that
are compatible with Vista so I downgraded it to XP. I'm still hunting
for all the drivers ... but that's not my question!

I have noticed with utilities like CPU-Z that the CPU clock is not
throttled down when it is running on batteries. The CPU is still
blazing along at full speed sucking the life out of the battery. I
was lucky to get 90 minutes out of it!

My question is why isn't it automatically throttling down like my
old laptop?
What can I do to get it to throttle down while running on batteries?

TIA...

Hardware specs:
- Turion 64 x2 TL-50 (1.6 GHz, "Taylor" core)
- 120 GB hard drive (SATA)
- 2 GB of memory
- Atheros WiFi card, LAN, modem, etc.
 
Hi, folks!

The other day I picked up a new laptop. I have no programs that
are compatible with Vista so I downgraded it to XP. I'm still hunting
for all the drivers ... but that's not my question!

I have noticed with utilities like CPU-Z that the CPU clock is not
throttled down when it is running on batteries. The CPU is still
blazing along at full speed sucking the life out of the battery. I
was lucky to get 90 minutes out of it!

My question is why isn't it automatically throttling down like my
old laptop?
What can I do to get it to throttle down while running on batteries?

TIA...

Hardware specs:
- Turion 64 x2 TL-50 (1.6 GHz, "Taylor" core)
- 120 GB hard drive (SATA)
- 2 GB of memory
- Atheros WiFi card, LAN, modem, etc.
Click to expand...

Check the bios menus to see if there's an applicable setting
there. If there is not you will need the acer power
management app, which lets you set custom power profiles.
It should be on Acer's website, I recommend you download and
archive everything you can get from their site, though this
app "might" also be on one of the CDs they sent to you.

Check out their FTP offerings too,
ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_5100/
(note if yours is model # 51nn like 5110 instead of 5100 you
might need to go up one directroy to see other files).

I believe this might be what you want:
ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_5100/utilities/Acer
ePowerManagement 2.0.2016a.zip
though the spaces in the file name broke it so here's a
TinyURL link to it:
http://tinyurl.com/yweg9r

Once installed there will be a battery or some other little
icon in the Taskbar tray you open to configure the power
settings.
 
Go to power management on the screen saver page, and choose mobile \
battery from the list of profiles. This should enable full speedstep \
cool n quiet technology and backstep the core speed.

Interesting, you say you had NO Vista capable programs? Vista will
extend battery life by 15-25% over XP usually.

If all else fails, try to get a utility from the laptop manufacturer.
 
Go to power management on the screen saver page, and choose mobile \
battery from the list of profiles. This should enable full speedstep \
cool n quiet technology and backstep the core speed.
Click to expand...

That is not the typical resolution, it does not turn off
unused features nor lower the backlighting. Further one
does not want to continually have to switch this back and
forth.

Interesting, you say you had NO Vista capable programs? Vista will
extend battery life by 15-25% over XP usually.
Click to expand...

Umm, no Vista does not usually save battery power it usually
uses more unless you use manual or automated methods to
reduce the GUI effects, at which point it only uses a little
more instead of a lot more.
 
Umm, no Vista does not usually save battery power it usually
uses more unless you use manual or automated methods to
reduce the GUI effects, at which point it only uses a little
more instead of a lot more.
Click to expand...

I get an extra 45 minutes when using Vista Ultimate instead of XP
Professional, with the Vista power management options having a lot
more scope than the simple XP ones.

Backlighting and unused features are usually controlled via a third-
party or manufacturer application, not directly via Windows.
Unfortunately when you wipe a laptop and install older operating
systems, you lose all of the manufacturer specific apps, most of which
are useless, granted, but some are necessary for power management.
 
I get an extra 45 minutes when using Vista Ultimate instead of XP
Professional, with the Vista power management options having a lot
more scope than the simple XP ones.
Click to expand...

You might, but quite a few people have startlingly less
battery life under Vista. There isn't "more scope"
necessarily needed, that's what the hardware specific
manufacturer's utility is for.


Backlighting and unused features are usually controlled via a third-
party or manufacturer application, not directly via Windows.
Click to expand...

Yes, none of this should be controlled by windows.
Unfortunately when you wipe a laptop and install older operating
systems, you lose all of the manufacturer specific apps, most of which
are useless, granted, but some are necessary for power management.
Click to expand...

You "might" lose them in theory but in practice you often
don't. They're typically available on the included CDs,
available for download from their website, and do cover XP
(and probably would work on Win2k as well).
 
Unfortunately when you wipe a laptop and install older operating
You "might" lose them in theory but in practice you often
don't. They're typically available on the included CDs,
available for download from their website, and do cover XP
(and probably would work on Win2k as well).
Click to expand...

One would hope someone who knows enough to re-install Windows XP would
know to install the utilities\drivers etc again, although this is not
meant to be rude to the thread starter.

Many XP-only programs do in fact work fine on Vista, and vice-versa.
 
One would hope someone who knows enough to re-install Windows XP would
know to install the utilities\drivers etc again, although this is not
meant to be rude to the thread starter.

Many XP-only programs do in fact work fine on Vista, and vice-versa.
Click to expand...

Not all! Take MSDE 2000 for example. It won't install under Vista so
you have to switch SSEE 2005 (+ .NET Framework 2.0). The accounting
program I have uses MSDE 2000 and it would be pretty hard to have it
change databases. Plus, I can't stand the UAC and the re-labeling /
re-organizing of the features.

Anyway, the power management software works but it still doesn't
throttle down the CPU. We'll see if the battery lasts the 3 hours the
software says it will last.

...
 
Not all! Take MSDE 2000 for example. It won't install under Vista so
you have to switch SSEE 2005 (+ .NET Framework 2.0). The accounting
program I have uses MSDE 2000 and it would be pretty hard to have it
change databases. Plus, I can't stand the UAC and the re-labeling /
re-organizing of the features.

Anyway, the power management software works but it still doesn't
throttle down the CPU. We'll see if the battery lasts the 3 hours the
software says it will last.
Click to expand...


The power management software should be throttling the CPU.
What indications do you have that it is not? If it indeed
is not throttling it, I would see if there's a bios update
to address this or perhaps a newer version of the
application. Shooting an email off to Acer might not get a
useful result, but wouldn't hurt.

Battery runtime estimates are just that, can't actually
resolve runtime accurately because power usage depends on
what you're doing with the system.
 
If you haven't done so yet, you might also look at obtaining the latest CPU
driver from AMD. The latest driver version is v1.3.2.0053 dated 9/7/07.
They are available at
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_14098,00.html

My Acer Aspire 5102WLMi gets about 2hrs with XP and using their "Empowering
Technology" software. You can get that from Acer as a download. BTW, if
you use their on line help, expect them to take about two weeks to provide
you with an answer.

Ernie in Kansas City, Kansas, USA

Hi, folks!

The other day I picked up a new laptop. I have no programs that
are compatible with Vista so I downgraded it to XP. I'm still hunting
for all the drivers ... but that's not my question!

I have noticed with utilities like CPU-Z that the CPU clock is not
throttled down when it is running on batteries. The CPU is still
blazing along at full speed sucking the life out of the battery. I
was lucky to get 90 minutes out of it!

My question is why isn't it automatically throttling down like my
old laptop?
What can I do to get it to throttle down while running on batteries?

TIA...

Hardware specs:
- Turion 64 x2 TL-50 (1.6 GHz, "Taylor" core)
- 120 GB hard drive (SATA)
- 2 GB of memory
- Atheros WiFi card, LAN, modem, etc.
 
3 hrs aint gonna happen, 90 mins is tops

One would hope someone who knows enough to re-install Windows XP would
know to install the utilities\drivers etc again, although this is not
meant to be rude to the thread starter.

Many XP-only programs do in fact work fine on Vista, and vice-versa.
Click to expand...

Not all! Take MSDE 2000 for example. It won't install under Vista so
you have to switch SSEE 2005 (+ .NET Framework 2.0). The accounting
program I have uses MSDE 2000 and it would be pretty hard to have it
change databases. Plus, I can't stand the UAC and the re-labeling /
re-organizing of the features.

Anyway, the power management software works but it still doesn't
throttle down the CPU. We'll see if the battery lasts the 3 hours the
software says it will last.

....
 
Hi, folks!

    The other day I picked up a new laptop.  I have no programs that
are compatible with Vista so I downgraded it to XP.  I'm still hunting
for all the drivers ... but that's not my question!

    I have noticed with utilities like CPU-Z that the CPU clock is not
throttled down when it is running on batteries.  The CPU is still
blazing along at full speed sucking the life out of the battery.  I
was lucky to get 90 minutes out of it!

     My question is why isn't it automatically throttling down like my
old laptop?
What can I do to get it to throttle down while running on batteries?

TIA...

Hardware specs:
- Turion 64 x2 TL-50 (1.6 GHz, "Taylor" core)
- 120 GB hard drive (SATA)
- 2 GB of memory
- Atheros WiFi card, LAN, modem, etc.
Click to expand...

I ended up installing the freeware utility RightMark Clock utility.
It was able to work in tandem with the power management schemes and
throttle the CPU down to 800 MHz when running off the battery. I
verified the CPU clock speed with CPU-Z.
 
Blue said:
.... snip ...

I ended up installing the freeware utility RightMark Clock
utility. It was able to work in tandem with the power management
schemes and throttle the CPU down to 800 MHz when running off
the battery. I verified the CPU clock speed with CPU-Z.
Click to expand...

Piggybacking. Try installing Ubuntu, and abandon Windoze.
 
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