98SE - no plans to upgrade..at least not with Windows.
Regards,
Understanding Your BIOS Power Management Settings
This is for Green PCs, or those complying with the EPA Energy Star
programs; the intention is to save unnecessary power usage if the system
becomes inactive. Power is reduced automatically to the devices and
restored as quickly as possible when activity is detected (that's the
theory, anyway). This is usually done with idle timing and event
monitoring techniques. A Power Management Unit (PMU) monitors interrupt
signals through an interrupt events detector. If it hears nothing for a
while, the system is put gradually and progressively to sleep, in that
the longer the time inactive, the more parts of the system will close
down. However, setting all this up in the BIOS only goes so far - you
should do it in your operating system as well (not NT) - certainly,
ensure that 95/98's compatibility with APM 1.0 is enabled through
Control Panel.
Choices available range from simple "dozing" to complete shutdown:
* Dozing slows the CPU down only, to around half speed.
* Standby shuts down HD and video, or CPU and SCLK (depends on the
chipset).
* Suspend shuts down all devices except the CPU.
* Inactive stops the CPU, slows the SCLK and powers down the L2 cache.
* HDD Power Down just shuts down the hard disk.
As with anything, there are industry standards. For energy saving
purposes, these include:
* APM, or Advanced Power Management
Devised by Intel/Microsoft. This must be active if you want to
keep the time and date when the system is suspended, with power.exe for
DOS (try power.drv for Windows) that coordinates BIOS, DOS and program
activity. APM is responsible for shutting the system down on quitting
the operating system, typically Windows '95, and other useful tricks.
* ATA, or AT Attachments Specification
For IDE drives. Some ATA compliant devices provide Spin down
facilities.
* DPMS, or Display Power Management Signaling
Monitors and cards conforming to this are meant to be matched, as
signals are sent between them to put the CRT into various low power
states, which need instructions from the BIOS. These are recognized
power management states:
* Run, Standby, Suspend and Off.
Suspend is slower to return to the Run state than Standby, which
is regarded as being temporarily idle. Disable Standby and Suspend if
you don't want PM.
* ACPI, or Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
Hashed out mainly by Intel, Microsoft and Toshiba. This will allow
desktop PCs to have instant on, and be better for voicemail and
household device control, as peripherals can be turned off as well as
the main system unit. It will work the other way, too. Only devices with
an ACP BIOS later than Jan 1 1999 are guaranteed to work with Windows
2000. Some BIOS's have their own maximum and minimum settings for the
times allocated, but you may have a "User Defined" option for your own.
More options may be available for SL (low power) CPUs. SM Out, by the
way, means the System Management Output control pin.
