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title, description, ms.prod, ms.mktglfcycl, ms.sitesec, author, ms.author, ms.topic, ms.date
| title | description | ms.prod | ms.mktglfcycl | ms.sitesec | author | ms.author | ms.topic | ms.date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Optimizing power management for Surface devices | This topic explains best practice recommendations for maintaining optimal power settings on your Surface device. | w10 | manage | library | coveminer | v-jokai | article | 12/17/2018 |
#Optimizing power management for Surface devices This topic explains best practice recommendations for maintaining optimal power settings on your Surface device.
Using the Windows performance power slider
Surface devices running Windows 10 build 1709and later, provide an option to directly control power consumption for the CPU and hardware components. Power slider settings — consisting of four slider modes do not change any of the power settings in the operating system (configurable via advanced power options or via Group Policy).
| Slider mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Battery Saver | Helps conserve power, and prolong battery life, when the system is not connected to a power source. When battery saver is on, some Windows features are disabled, throttled, or behave differently. Screen brightness is also reduced. Battery Saver is only available when using battery power (DC). To learn more, see Battery Saver. |
| Recommended | Delivers longer battery life than the default settings on previous versions of Windows. In some cases, users will see this mode labeled Better Battery. |
| Better Performance | Default slider mode that slightly favors performance over battery life and is appropriate for users who want to exchange power for better app performance. |
| Best Performance | Favors performance over power, designed for users requiring maximum performance and responsiveness without regard for battery power consumption. |
To learn more, see:
Modern Standby
Surface is designed as a modern standby device, dynamically fine-tuning power management of individual hardware components. Modern standby enables an instant on experience like smartphones.
It consists of two modes:
Connected Standby
In contrast to traditional sleep modes — ACPI Sleep (S3) and Hibernate (S4) States — that shut off all system activity when the device screen is off, Connected Standby maintains network connectivity and syncs with the cloud.
For example, when you get email or your applications receive data over the network, Connected Standby powers components only while actively processing incoming data.
By managing power consumption directly at the individual hardware component level, fine-tunes power consumption by waking up small portions of the system for short time spans to handle background tasks such as an incoming email or network traffic before returning to (S0), also known as Deepest Runtime Idle Platform State (DRIPS). It is the default power mode for Surface devices except for Surface Studio.
Figure 1. Power management and core components in Surface Pro
To learn more, see:
Disconnected Standby
Disconnected standby extends battery life by disabling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other network traffic when you close the lid on your Surface.
To enable Disconnected Standby:
-
Click PC settings > System > Power & sleep.
-
Under Network connection, for the setting When my PC is asleep and on battery power, disconnect from the network, select Always.
Figure 2. Disconnected Standby
Changing settings in Advanced power options
You can adjust settings for various preferences such as how long it takes for the screen to turn off when you step away from the device or what happens when you close the lid on your device – sleep (default) or do nothing, hibernate, or shutdown. You can also adjust notification settings that are triggered when battery power drops below a certain threshold as shown below.
Figure 3. Advanced Power Options
NOTE: In general, it’s recommended to leave the default settings unchanged and avoid creating custom power plans. This is because Surface uses an algorithm to intelligently manage power related components including settings that are not configurable in the Power Options user interface.
Changing hibernation timeout
During Connected Standby, Surface devices consume an average of approximately 1 percent of battery power per hour depending on the network activity. By default, Surface devices are set to enter hibernation after six hours.
Since Surface consumes almost no power during hibernation, you may wish to reduce the timeout period to extend battery life.
To set hibernation timeout on your Surface device:
- In the advanced Power Options dialog box, click Sleep > Hibernate after> and reduce the number of minutes as appropriate.
Figure 4. Setting hibernation timeout
Changing settings in Group Policy
To set hibernation timeout for multiple Surface devices via Group Policy:
-
Open the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) and browse to:
- Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Power Management\ Sleep Settings
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In the list of available settings, double-click Specify the system hibernate timeout (on battery) and specify the period of inactivity — in seconds — before Windows transitions the system to hibernate.
-
Ensure the policy setting is scoped to take effect on the Surface devices you’re targeting. For example if all your managed Surface devices belong to a specific security group, use the Group Policy Management console to configure the policy setting appropriately. For more information, refer to Recommendations for managing Group Policy administrative template (.adm) files.
Figure 5. Managing power settings in the Group Policy Editor
Viewing supported power states
Powercfg is a command-line utility that is used from an elevated Windows Command Prompt to control all configurable power system settings, including hardware-specific configurations that are not configurable through the Control Panel, on a per-user basis. It was first introduced by Microsoft in Windows XP SP2 in 2003.
To check the supported power states, open an elevated command window and enter the command:
- powercfg /a
To learn more about managing power, see Powercfg command line options.