I think his problem is the fact that he's got a laptop,
since he mantioned that it wasn't a mobile chip. The
standard P4s run quite hot in comparison to P4-M mobile
chips or pentium-M chips (the ones in Centrino laptops).
The only way that you can limit your power consumption is
to do as Rich said. Otherwise, if it is really bothering
you, you might want to look into a mobile chip. Remember,
unless you're planning on doing intense gaming or CAD
programming on your laptop (which I wouldn't recommend in
the first place), you'd be just fine working with a P4-M
chip running at, say 1.4 or 1.6 GHz. Anyone who tries to
sell you the story that you need more power is just
trying to empty your wallet into their hands. Another
point to note, lower clock speed means less power
consumed. See if you can find a P4-M 1.6GHz chip
somewhere and install that in your computer.
If you want to help extend your battery life even
further, make sure you have at least 512 MB of RAM. This
will minimize the amount of pagefile swapping your
computer does, and therefore the amount of time the hard
drive is used (less hard drive use=less battery used).
Look into Black Viper's site (
http://www.blackviper.com)
to see what services you can disable. Also, go to
http://www.lafn.org/webconnect/mentor/startup/PENINDEX.HTM
and then go to Start->Run and type in msconfig. Go to the
startup tab, and search for every item that is checked
off on the site above. If it isn't required, disable it
(remove the checkmark). This will help with both your
startup time and the amount of power your computer
consumes during startup.
One last thing that I've found helps general computer
performance (on both my desktop and laptop). Right-Click
on My Computer and select Properties. Under the hardware
tab, click on "Device Manager". There are several items
that you can disable here if you're not using them. For
example, with my laptop, I don't use my ethernet card at
all, so I've disabled it. That way, Windows doesn't have
to load the drivers for it on startup. Anything that you
know you don't use, disable it.
Hope this helps,
Nick
nkjg/at\interchange/dot\ubc/dot\ca
