Jason Dunn
11-06-2009, 05:30 PM
<p>I read about this tip in <a href="http://www.maximum.com" target="_blank">Maximum PC</a>, tried it myself, and thought I'd share it with Digital Home Thoughts readers. It's pretty cool! This tip will tell Windows 7 to generate a power report, telling you which devices are mis-configured for optimal power savings.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1257522490.usr1.png" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>To generate this report, here's what you do: first, click on the Start button, then type CMD. Right-click on the CMD program that will appear in the filtered list, and select Run As Administrator. A command-line box will appear. At the prompt, type in <strong>powercfg -energy</strong>. Wait 60 seconds, and Windows 7 will generate an HTML file called <strong>energy-report</strong> in the Systerm32 directory. Go find it and check out the results. <MORE /></p><p>In my case, when I ran it on an HP Slimline computer purchased in 2007 and now running Windows 7, it tagged a bunch of USB devices that do not enter the Suspend State properly. What's curious is that when I go into Device Manager and check out the details for the USB Wireless adapter for instance, the check-box for "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" is checked. I suspect it's a driver issue - this was a Windows Vista-era computer, and while Windows 7 went on without a hitch, it's using generic Microsoft drivers rather than any that are from HP. I originally became interested in running this report because while this Slimline computer goes into sleep mode just fine, it has a habit of waking itself up for no reason - and I suspect a USB device is to blame. I've disabled the mouse and keyboard as devices that can wake the computer up from sleep, so we'll see how that goes...</p>