How to Use Powercfg Commands on Windows 10
Ever wondered why your laptop battery drains so quickly? Or why your desktop computer goes into sleep mode so frequently? It might be time to take a closer look at your device’s power management settings.
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Why Should You Use Powercfg?
Powercfg is designed to help users manage power settings on their devices. It provides access to advanced power settings unavailable in the standard Windows settings menu, allowing you to optimize the performance of your PC.
One of the key benefits of using Powercfg is that it allows you to conserve power and extend the battery life on your PC. By customizing power settings, you can control when and how your device uses power, which can significantly reduce energy consumption.
Another significant benefit of using Powercfg is that it can help identify power-hungry peripherals and applications draining battery life or consuming excessive power. It also provides detailed information about your device’s power usage and diagnosesproblems affecting performance.
Powercfg can also help you create custom power plans. This allows you to tailor power settings to your specific needs and preferences, such as power-saving or high-performance plans. These custom plans can be saved and used across multiple devices, saving time and improving efficiency.
System administrators and IT professionals use Powercfg to manage power settings on multiple devices in an organization remotely. This makes running devices efficiently and conserving power easier, leading to significant cost savings for organizations.
Basic Powercfg Commands
Powercfg commandsare used to perform a wide range of tasks related to power management on Windows 10 devices. To get started with power optimization on your device, here are some commands you can try:
1. Powercfg /batteryreport
This command generates a detailed report about your device’s battery status, usage history, and battery life estimation. As such, it can help you identify any issues with your battery or power settings affecting performance.
2. Powercfg /energy
The energy command runs a diagnostic test on your device and generates a report that provides detailed information about energy efficiency and power consumption. With this, you could identify power-hungry devices or applications affecting battery life or performance.
3. Powercfg /hibernate
Hibernation is a power-saving mode that saves the current state of your PC to the hard disk and then powers off your PC. Unlike sleep mode, which retains the PC’s state on the RAM, enabling hibernation can help you conserve power and extend your device’s battery life.
The commandpowercfg.exe /hibernate onenables the hibernation feature on your device.
4. Powercfg /query
By using the Powercfg-query command, you’ll be able to easily identify all the devices connected to your PC and their power status. This information can help you identify devices consuming excessive power or draining battery life.
5. Powercfg /requests
Running the request command will list all the applications and services preventing your device from entering sleep mode. This will help you identify applications or services causing your device to use excessive power or drain battery life.
Once you have familiarized yourself with these basic commands, you can move on to more advanced Powercfg commands to customize power plans and fine-tune power settings on your device.
Creating Custom Power Plans With Powercfg
Creating custom power plans is a great way to tailor the power settings on your device to your specific needs and preferences. Here’s how to create a custom power plan using Powercfg.
First,open Command Prompt as an administratorand typepowercfg /listto list all the available power plans on your PC.
The next step is to create a new power plan. To do so, typepowercfg /changename <existing_power_plan_GUID> <new_power_plan_name>in Command Prompt. Replace<existing_power_plan_GUID>with the GUID of the power plan you’re replacing.
Recall that you may find the GUID in the list of power plans you obtained usingpowercfg /list.Replace<new_power_plan_name>with the name you want to give to your new power plan.
For example, if you want to create a power plan based on the Balanced plan and call itPower PlanA, you would type:powercfg /changename 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c “PowerPlanA”.
To confirm if the change was successful, you can run thepowercfg /listcommandagain.
Now that you have created a new power plan, the next step is to modify its settings. Powercfg provides several customizations, including standby-timeout-ac, disk-timeout-ac, and hibernate-timeout-dc.
For example, to change your PC timeout, use the command:powercfg /change monitor-timeout-ac 15
Once you have customized your new power plan, you can set it as your default one. To do this, typepowercfg /setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT <power_plan_GUID>in Command Prompt.
Remember to replace<power_plan_GUID>with the GUID of your new power plan.
Then, enter the commandpowercfg -setactive SCHEME_CURRENTto save your changes.
Exporting and Importing Power Plans With Powercfg
Exporting and importing custom power plans will enable you to transfer or back them up for safekeeping.
The process of exporting a power plan with Powercfg is simple. First, open the Command Prompt as administrator and use thepowercfg /listcommand to obtain the GUID of the power plan you want to export.
Afterward, type the commandpowercfg -export <file name ending with .pow> . This exported power plan can then be shared or transferred to other computers.
Similarly, importing a power plan with Powercfg is straightforward. Open the Command Prompt as an administrator and use thepowercfg -import <filename>to import the power plan from the saved file on your PC.
After importing the plan, you can use thepowercfg /listcommand to find the GUID of the imported power plan and then set it as the active plan using thepowercfg /setactivecommand.
Mastering Powercfg Commands for Efficient Power Management
Using Powercfg commands in Windows 10 can unlock a world of possibilities for efficient power management and potential applications in real-world scenarios. No matter if you’re a power user looking to squeeze every last drop of performance or a conservationist looking to save battery when you’re on the go.
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