By default, it’s set to 20min of no reading and writing on the hard drive before it stops spinning. Once the hard drive turns off, it will take a second or two to start on again when you try to access data in it, i.e., you will notice a tiny delay if you let it turn off. This power setting will stop the hard drive from spinning after a specified idle time to save power. A hard drive continuously spins to read and write data, which of course, consumes power. Hard diskįirst, I should mention that this option only affects PCs running on a hard drive (HDD) PCs with SSD (solid-state drive) will not affect whatsoever. So make sure you adjust the settings considering these scenarios. Note: If you are using a laptop, then each power setting will have a separate option when plugged in or on battery power. Here click on Change advanced power settings link, and you’ll be ready to edit the power options explained below. However, you should pick the power plan name that best suits your intentions for clarity reasons, like whether you want to tweak for better performance or to save power.Ĭlick on Change plan settings next to your preferred power plan. It doesn’t matter which plan you choose here as all have the same options that you will customize anyway. You will now see three power plans here, Balanced, High Performance, and Power saver.
This will open the Power & sleep page click on the Additional power settings link in the right panel. Right-click on the start menu and select Power Options from the list.
Access Windows 10 power optionsīefore you actually edit the power options, you need to know where the power options reside in Windows 10. And today, I will explain each power option available in Windows 10, so you may choose the right setting based on whether you want better performance or want to save power (or both). Thankfully, Windows power profiles can be fully customized according to your need, but you need a little help in understanding each option to optimize it. However, I personally never let Windows decide which power profile I want, and I fully customize the power options every time I reset or reinstall Windows.īecause I find Windows preset power profile values to be rather flawed, for example, in the performance profile, Windows forces CPU power to always stay at max power, which isn’t necessary at all (more on it later). Windows offers 3 preset power profiles that you can switch based on whether you want better performance or power saving.