powerd effectiveness

[Ivan Voras]

Daniel O'Connor wrote:

> I believe FreeBSD turns PCI cards off if there is no driver attached.
> 
> I don't think XP actually turns those devices off if you are actually using 
> them. Not sure about the specifics for stuff like USB (ie what happens if 
> it's sleeping and you connect a USB peripheral)

Not if you're using them. I don't know much about it but most of "device 
property" dialogs have "Allow Windows to turn this device off to 
conserve power" check box. It apparently does something, as I remember 
seeing troubleshooting tips for USB devices (and possibly others) on 
mailing lists and web forums in the lines of "If you turn that checkbox 
off, the device starts working properly." I thought this may be the 
reason why my laptop lasts significantly longer when running WinXP than 
with FreeBSD but now I'm not so sure because some other factors appeared.