PC low power toggle?

[JComputer]

Hello problem solvers,

 

My computer produces a lot of heat at all times when it's on. As a result I have it turned off most of the day while I'm working on a laptop. This can be inconvenient, as my audio interface and speakers are connected to my PC. They can't be connected to the laptop because of permission limitations preventing instalation of necessary audio drivers. As a result, listening to music with my normal set up during the work day is a no go. 

 

Additionally, some of the games I play are 15 years old, and don't require a lot of computing power to run, relative to my set up.

 

Is there a way to toggle a low power mode to reduce heat and keep my PC running during the work day/low demand tasks, and then toggle back to full power when needed without going into BIOS?

 

Thanks

[DoctorNick]

Specs.

Edit: I see you've listed specs in profile.

Also did you overclock your PC without enabling power saving features in bios? If you tweaked your CPU, then you'll need to manually enable it. Also just set windows power plan to balanced. My PC for example uses ~20w idle

[Stahlmann]

Set all power plans to balanced and it shouldn't consume all that much power at idle. At idle my CPU and GPU only suck back about 30-50 W combined. Even 50W is nothing in terms of space heating. For context an average person puts out around 100W of heat.

[seban]

What are the temperatures?

 

24 minutes ago, JComputer said:

Is there a way to toggle a low power mode to reduce heat

There isn't a low power mode but you could try undervolting as your last resort

[Stahlmann]

4 minutes ago, seban said:

What are the temperatures?

PC component temperatures have nothing to do with heat output. A CPU can run at 100°C and put out 30W of heat or it can run at 60°C and put out 200W of heat.

[E-waste]

Welcome to the LTT community.

 

I'd suggest buying a power meter to see exactly how much power is being used by your pc.

 

Settings to check in the UEFI:

 

Intel SpeedStep, I think now Intel calls it something else, but if you don't see your CPU frequency drop in Windows Task Manager in the Performance CPU tab, then you're always running at maximum frequency, even when idle.

 

Your DRAM frequency is listed as 5.6Ghz.  I didn't know ram went that fast!  My ram is clocked down to 0.8 Ghz and undervolted below 1.3v.  But your ram is newer.  It can make the system freeze unexpectedly, so I don't recommend reducing it by much.

 

All possible voltage settings exposed in my UEFI have been heavily reduced, some, in the CPU section, to their available minimum settings.  I've had good luck with it not causing issues.

 

If you have case fans, try just using an exhaust in the back of the case along with the CPU fan of course.

 

Windows is constantly loading and uploading data to the cloud about your computer.  You can block this network activity with a DNS filter system like Pi-hole.

 

I run mine in a VM VirtualBox and it uses less than 256MB, and it uses half of that once the Linux core is booted.

 

Try going through your startup programs, and especially "scheduled tasks" and expand the "Microsoft" section and choose disable on things.

 

Warning!!! If you choose "delete" in scheduled tasks, it locks up the program, and you'll have to close it with task manager.  And what you selected to delte, will not be deleted.  So I say again, choose disable, instead to avoid this "bug".

[JComputer]

On 1/3/2023 at 9:50 AM, DoctorNick said:

Specs.

Edit: I see you've listed specs in profile.

Also did you overclock your PC without enabling power saving features in bios? If you tweaked your CPU, then you'll need to manually enable it. Also just set windows power plan to balanced. My PC for example uses ~20w idle

Thanks! Changing the windows setting was a game changer. 

[JComputer]

On 1/3/2023 at 10:02 AM, Stahlmann said:

Set all power plans to balanced and it shouldn't consume all that much power at idle. At idle my CPU and GPU only suck back about 30-50 W combined. Even 50W is nothing in terms of space heating. For context an average person puts out around 100W of heat.

Thanks for the suggestion! 

[JComputer]

On 1/3/2023 at 10:39 AM, Timpster said:

Welcome to the LTT community.

 

I'd suggest buying a power meter to see exactly how much power is being used by your pc.

 

Settings to check in the UEFI:

 

Intel SpeedStep, I think now Intel calls it something else, but if you don't see your CPU frequency drop in Windows Task Manager in the Performance CPU tab, then you're always running at maximum frequency, even when idle.

 

Your DRAM frequency is listed as 5.6Ghz.  I didn't know ram went that fast!  My ram is clocked down to 0.8 Ghz and undervolted below 1.3v.  But your ram is newer.  It can make the system freeze unexpectedly, so I don't recommend reducing it by much.

 

All possible voltage settings exposed in my UEFI have been heavily reduced, some, in the CPU section, to their available minimum settings.  I've had good luck with it not causing issues.

 

If you have case fans, try just using an exhaust in the back of the case along with the CPU fan of course.

 

Windows is constantly loading and uploading data to the cloud about your computer.  You can block this network activity with a DNS filter system like Pi-hole.

 

I run mine in a VM VirtualBox and it uses less than 256MB, and it uses half of that once the Linux core is booted.

 

Try going through your startup programs, and especially "scheduled tasks" and expand the "Microsoft" section and choose disable on things.

 

Warning!!! If you choose "delete" in scheduled tasks, it locks up the program, and you'll have to close it with task manager.  And what you selected to delte, will not be deleted.  So I say again, choose disable, instead to avoid this "bug".

Thanks for all the info!