How to Turn off the Wi-Fi Connection in Windows Vista

When you are on trains, in taxis, on the bus, or flying in an airplane, you likely don’t need your Wi-Fi connection to be constantly searching for an available network.

It may not seem like it takes a lot of power, but searching for a connection can take some juice away from your notebook. If you’re not going to be actively using a wireless connection, then the best solution would be to simply turn the Wi-Fi off temporarily. Many notebooks have a wireless on/off switch or button on the keyboard face of the case. You may need to consult your notebook manufacturer for instructions on turning off and on your Wi-Fi.

Reduce your CPU’s Power Consumption

Windows Vista allows for a little more manageability with a lot of power options. Maybe it’s because of the Green environmental movement, or maybe because notebook battery consumption can cause so many problems. Vista users can reduce the CPU power on a Vista notebook in order to conserve more energy than on a comparable XP machine. 

1. Click the Start Menu and select Control Panel.
2. In classic view, select Power Options.
3. Under the Recommended setting (may say recommended by your computer manufacturer), select Change plan settings. 
   
   
   
4. Select Change Advanced power settings.
5. Double click Maximum processor state (the Minimum state should already be at 5%).
6. There are two entries for this, AC and Battery – double click Battery.

Choose the percentage of processor speed to use. Reducing the number closer to one slows the processor and saves energy.

The processor speed can be lowered if the only activities on the computer would be word processor related, like writing emails, editing documents, etc. However, more graphically intensive activities would require a higher processor speed to complete the requests quickly. This should be taken into account when determining the correct processor speed.

Other Advanced Activity Settings

In the Advanced Power Settings options, you can manipulate when the computer sleeps, when the hard disks turn off, USB activity, power button configuration, display settings, and more. For those with Windows Vista Ultimate’s Dreamscene pack, you may notice you can turn this feature on or off in this menu. We recommend changing Dreamscene to Power Saver mode when configuring power options for battery use.

Indexing and searching the computer can also tax a notebook’s battery. In the advanced power options settings, you can change the indexing variable to Power Saver in order to only index when necessary.

Conclusion

The majority of powers saving options rely on configurable settings within both Windows XP and Windows Vista notebooks. It may not seem like a glamorous use of time, but setting up various power schemes can save frustration later (when the notebook dies on a plane trip). Just remember to reduce the amount of CPU usage on a Vista notebook, and create the right scheme on the XP machine. It might take you a little bit of tweaking to get the settings to work just right for your usage scenario, but with a little forethought, you can add some precious minutes to your notebook’s battery life.