You automatically conserve battery power each time you attach your
computer to an electrical outlet. When the AC adapter is attached,
the battery is charged while the computer uses AC power. Your
battery's life expectancy is largely determined by the number of times
it is charged, so use an AC power source to run the computer if one is
available.
When the computer is using battery power, remove the PC Cards that
you are not using.
When possible, attach your computer to an electrical outlet when you
play CDs and DVDs. Playing a CD or DVD uses a lot of battery power.
Place the computer in standby mode or hibernate mode when you
leave the computer unattended for long periods of time.
Standby mode conserves power by turning off the display and the hard drive
after a predetermined period of inactivity (a time-out). When you exit
standby mode, the desktop is restored to the same state that it was in before
the computer entered standby mode.
To activate standby mode:
Click the Start button, click Shut down, click Stand by, and then click
OK.
or
Press the power button or the power conservation key combination,
<Fn><Suspend>, that you programmed (via the Advanced tab).
HINT: You can use the
Advanced tab to program
the display-close option,
the power button, and the
power conservation key
combination to activate
standby mode.
To exit standby mode, press the power button, or if you activated standby
mode by closing the display, open (raise) the display.
Hibernate mode conserves power by copying system data to a reserved area
on the hard drive and then completely turning off the computer. When you
exit hibernate mode, the programs and files that were open before you
activated hibernate mode are still open.
Your computer enters hibernate mode if the battery charge level becomes
critically low, or if either the power button, the power conservation key
combination, <Fn><Suspend>, or the display-close option are
programmed to activate hibernate mode in the Advanced tab of the Power
Options Properties (Power Management Properties in Microsoft®
Windows® 98) window.
HINT: Some PC Cards
may not operate correctly
after exiting hibernate
mode. If you encounter
problems with a PC Card,
reinsert the card or
restart your computer.
To exit hibernate mode, press the power button. The computer may take a
short time to exit hibernate mode. Pressing a key or touching the touch pad
or track stick does not bring the computer out of hibernate mode.
Hibernate mode requires a special file on your hard drive with enough disk
space to store the contents of the computer memory. Dell creates an
appropriately sized hibernate mode file before shipping the computer to
you. If you are using Windows 98 and you remove the file, change the
amount of memory in the computer, or if your hard drive becomes
corrupted, you must recreate the file before you can again use hibernate
mode.
The Power schemes pull-down menu displays the selected preset power
scheme:
Portable/Laptop (default)
Home/Office
Always On
Presentation (Windows 2000 only)
Minimal Power Management (Windows 2000 only)
Max Battery (Windows 2000 only)
HINT: Dell recommends
that you continue to use
the Portable/Laptop
power scheme to
maximize battery power
conservation.
Each preset power scheme has different time-out settings for putting the
computer into standby mode, turning off the display, and turning off the
hard drive.
HINT: To enable audible
alarms, click each Alarm
Action button and select
Sound alarm.
The Low battery alarm and Critical battery alarm settings alert you with a
message when the battery charge falls below a certain percentage. When
you receive your computer, the Lower battery alarm and Critical battery
alarm check boxes are selected. Dell recommends that you continue to use
these defaults.
HINT: If you are going to
connect your computer to
a port replicator, click
None when you program
the display-close option.
This setting ensures that
your computer does not
enter standby mode or
hibernate mode when you
close (lower) the display.
To program these functions, click an option from the corresponding pull-
down menu, and then click OK.
If your computer has a Mobile Intel Pentium® III processor, the Power
Options Properties (Power Management Properties in Windows 98)
window includes the Intel® SpeedStep™ tab.
To change the Intel SpeedStep options, click the Advanced button and then
click one of the following options.
HINT: If you disable
Intel SpeedStep, the
processor operates at its
minimum speed.
Disable Intel SpeedStep technology control.
Remove flag icon.
Disable audio notification when performance changes.
Click Apply to accept any changes, and then click OK to close the Intel
SpeedStep technology window.
