Energy efficiency is one of the most active topics in modern computing today. As evidence, consider that processor and chipset vendors are marketing products on “performance per watt”, instead of just processor clock frequency and benchmark performance.
The Windows operating system can have just as big an influence as any other component in the platform. In engineering Windows 7 Microsofts goal is to make sure Windows provides a great foundation and energy saving opportunities within the operating system starting with configuration of power policy settings.
For Windows 7, Microsoft is refining the user experiences for power management, focusing on reducing idle power consumption and supporting new device power modes.
There are two reasons to optimize idle power consumption on the system.
First there are various times throughout the day when the PC is idle and the more the system gets to idle and stays idle, the less power it uses.
Second, idle power consumption is the ‘base’ power consumption for all other workloads. A system which consumes 15W at Idle will consume additional power over the idle power consumption while is use for other workloads. By reducing the idle power consumption on the platform we will improve most other scenarios as well.
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E7.
Windows 7 Power Management
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