Q: Change Power Saving Settings (Windows XP)

The Windows OS has many options to adjust the amount of power consumed by your computer. You can change the power settings by following the below steps:

Video Tutorial

Changing Power Saving Settings

  • Right click on the Desktop and Select “Properties”
  • Click the “Screen Saver” tab along the top of the “Display Properties” Dialog window
  • On the Screen Saver tab near the bottom of the window, there is a section named “Monitor power.” In this section click the button label “Power…” to bring up the Power Saving Settings.
  • A new dialog will appear called “Power Options Properties,” which will allow you to adjust the following options:
    • Power Schemes – Pre-made Power Settings
    • Turn off monitor – The amount of time to wait before turning off your display.
    • Turn off hard disks – The amount of time to wait before turning off the hard drives in the computer. I advise to set this option to “Never,” this setting has been know to cause system instability.
    • System standby – The amount of time to wait before putting the computer into Standby Mode. Again, I would advise setting to “Never” for the same reasons stated above.
    • System hibernates – The amount of time to wait before putting the computer into Hibernation.
  • After you are done making changes to the power settings, click “OK” to apply and close the “Power Options Properties.”
  • Click “OK” to close “Display Properties.”

Standby Mode – Maintains your current session and puts the computer into a low power state

Hibernate Mode – Saves your current session to disk and turns off the computer, when the computer is turned back on your session will be restored. Warning: Do not put your computer into hibernation if you are running several programs that requires large amounts of system memory, because the system may not resume from hibernation correctly. E.g. Web Browser with several tabs open, Games, Graphic Editing Programs, Video Editing Programs, Large Spreadsheets, etc.

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Comments

  1. dave says:

    geez people, how about the short answer.. control panel, power options properties
    done already

  2. Steven Assadi says:

    Hi,
    My computer is in “Entering power Save mode”, the screen is dark. When I start the computer, the light indicator stays orange instead of turning green. Please advise.

    Thank you,
    Steven Assadi

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