Mobile Computing

Power management allows you to configure how a computer consumes energy. In Windows 2000, power management is based on the ACPI architecture implementation, which is based on the OnNow design initiative for power management. The OnNow design initiative is a comprehensive, system-wide approach to system and device power control based on a group of new specifications. The ACPI architecture gives the operating system complete control of power use on the computer. Windows 2000 also supports some implementations of the APM architecture. However, APM does not give Windows 2000 control of the power being used by devices (that is, power that is controlled by the BIOS), and your ability to manage power is more limited with APM-based computers than it is with ACPI-based computers.

Even if you do not have an APM-based or an ACPI-based computer, Windows 2000 allows you to manage some aspects of power consumption. For example, depending on the capabilities of your hardware, you can power down disks, turn off power to monitors, and put the computer into hibernate mode.

This section discusses power management in Windows 2000. It includes procedures for configuring and using power management as well as procedures for identifying whether your computer is ACPI-based, APM-based, or neither.