Overview – Change Power Plan in Windows
A power scheme is a set of power settings that you may utilize to manage how much power and performance your computer manages consecutively. Windows id delivered pre-built with a default balanced power scheme that is already optimized to save energy while maintaining a pleasant user experience by providing optimal performance at the same time.
It seems that you either want to improve the battery life of your laptop or want to enhance its performance. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to change power mode in Windows 11:
Available Power Schemes in Windows (By Default)
1. Best Battery Life Power Scheme
The battery saver plan lets you get the most out of your battery by limiting CPU activity and turning off the display earlier than other plans, hence extending battery life and lowering brightness settings. To save battery life, it stops background programs and puts the drivers into sleep mode when they are left idle for an extended period of time.
2. Balanced Power Scheme
Most users prefer the balanced plan as it balances energy consumption and performance. It manages the CPU’s speed automatically, increasing or decreasing it depending on the resources required by an application.
3. High Performance Power Scheme
The high-performance plan provides maximum performance at the expense of battery life increasing the CPU’s clock speed and frequency, brightness, and other components including Wi-Fi, Ethernet and drivers doesn’t put the drivers into the sleep mode to save power.
4. Customized Power Scheme
The customized power scheme allows the user to manually specify configurations based on individual needs.
1. Change Power Mode using Windows Settings
Step 1: Open the Windows Settings form the Start menu or press the “Windows Logo key + I” key combination on the keyboard.
Step 2: Select the “System” tab from the left sidebar and click the “Power & Battery”.
Step 3: Select the desired power mode from the dropdown menu (Best Performance, Balanced and Best Power Efficiency) under the power section.
Best Performance, Balanced and Best Power Efficiency Mode
2. Change Power Mode using Control Panel
Step 1: Open the Control Panel from the Start menu.
Step 2: Click the “System and Security” button.
Step 3: Click the “Power Options” button.
Step 4: Select the desired power scheme and click the “Apply” button.
3. Change Power Mode using Command Prompt or PowerShell
Step 1: In the Start menu, search for Command Prompt or PowerShell and run it as an administrator.
Step 2: To list all the available power modes on your computer, type the command: powercfg/list and you’ll see the Power Scheme Unique Identifier (GUID) listed. The GUID with asterisk (*) is the active power scheme.
Step 3: To set the desired power scheme, type the following command:
powercfg/setactive GUID.
For example: powercfg /setactive 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e.
Next Steps
We’ve covered how to change power mode in Windows 11. You can use any one of the methods listed above.
The only noticeable flaw with this functionality is that unless you enable the “Balanced” option, you have compromise on battery life when using the “Best Performance” mode and performance while using the “Best Battery Life” mode.
Further, optimize your computer for performance by referring to the related articles below.
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