Other components, such as your Wi-Fi or disk drive, may also not go into power-saving modes.īut you don’t need to rely on any summaries of how the power plans work.

High Performance: High Performance mode doesn’t lower your CPU’s speed when it isn’t being used, running it at higher speeds most of the time.

Power Saver: Power Saver attempts to save power by reducing the CPU’s speed all the time and lowering screen brightness, among other similar settings.

This is the default setting, and it should be fine most of the time.

Balanced: Balanced automatically increases your CPU’s speed when your computer needs it, and reduces it when it isn’t necessary.

Rather than tweak settings one-by-one, though, these “plans” are designed to provide an easy way to switch between common groups of settings. Your PC manufacturer may have included their own power plans as well, and you can create your own custom ones if you like.Įach of these power plans is actually just a different group of settings. “Balanced” and “Power saver” are the default ones, while “High performance” is hidden under the “Show additional plans” heading at the bottom.

This screen can also be accessed from the Control Panel. Click the “Hardware and Sound” category and then select “Power Options.”įrom here, you can select your preferred power plan. To see your power plans on Windows 10, right-click the battery icon in your system tray and choose “Power Options.” First, let’s take a look at what you have.

Green battery saver and manager