how to lessen load on laptop

[doomgiver]

is there any way to do a "partial" sleep of the os, so that only the disk is active.

like, i want to download some ebooks, and its a big torrent file (2-3 gb) so, what i'd like is that i leave the laptop at night and not have it consume a lot of energy.

in short :

what i dont want :
1. heat generated by laptop
2. power consumed by laptop


what i want :
1. some software to get the laptop is such a state that it suspends all operations except the torrent job(downloading and writing to disk) or maybe just downloading and saving to ram (i have 3 gb, and at least 1 gb is free at all times, when im not playing games.)
2. suspending all os operations except the ones i want.

anything comes to your mind???

[gameranand]

Put it on Stand by mode.

[Vyom]

@OP: You can't just let the laptop reach to NO heat and NO power consumption state.
It would take both of these if ran all night. The best is to keep it under Standby mode, and be sure, it gets ventilated properly, during the night. That is keep it away from walls, books, or your bed!

PS: I couldn't helped giggling, reading gameranand's response! Since he provided such a short answer to such a Long question!

[arpanmukherjee1]

you need to run the OS to run the torrent client and network connection. Standby is not the solution.

for downloading, use a netbook. the lowest config with external HDD is perfet for such jobs

[Vyom]

I don't think, OP is going to buy a (another) netbook, just for the sole purpose of downloading!

But yeah, you maybe right with your first statement, since maybe in Stand-by mode, hard drives are put to rest too.
So, the thing which OP maybe try, is to use some turbo mode of say, TuneUp Utilities, which effectively switches off any unnecessary background services, for as long as the user wants.
This mode can be very well used for running just the tasks which user desires, including downloading tasks!
Tell me, how does that suggestion sounds. Since I came up with it, just now!

[doomgiver]

Originally Posted by gameranand

Put it on Stand by mode.

no such mode in win7
and it will still spin down the hdd

Originally Posted by vineet369

@OP: You can't just let the laptop reach to NO heat and NO power consumption state.
It would take both of these if ran all night. The best is to keep it under Standby mode, and be sure, it gets ventilated properly, during the night. That is keep it away from walls, books, or your bed!

PS: I couldn't helped giggling, reading gameranand's response! Since he provided such a short answer to such a Long question!

no, i dont wanna reach no heat/power, i want to reduce it. my hp is a furnace. if i leave it running a torrent in an unventilated room, it will easily reach 50C @ hdd. i just want to keep it safe from overheating

Originally Posted by vineet369

I don't think, OP is going to buy a (another) netbook, just for the sole purpose of downloading!

But yeah, you maybe right with your first statement, since maybe in Stand-by mode, hard drives are put to rest too.
So, the thing which OP maybe try, is to use some turbo mode of say, TuneUp Utilities, which effectively switches off any unnecessary background services, for as long as the user wants.
This mode can be very well used for running just the tasks which user desires, including downloading tasks!
Tell me, how does that suggestion sounds. Since I came up with it, just now!

dude, no way!!! im not going to buy a netbook JUST for that!!! rather buy a old cheap box and run linux on it. cheaper and safer.

what i was thinking was this :

a software to hold the downlaoded data in ram until a critical point, after which the laptop will sleep/stand by (this is preffered) or it will write contents of the ram (???buffer???) to the disk, spinning them up from a hold/sleep/power down mode, after which the disks will spin down auto matically.

this will keep the temps down to a manageable level, and the hdd wont get too hot.

[xtremevicky]

I dont know or havent heared of such a software !

The best you can do is leave it on under a fan .

[doomgiver]

well, i had a small psu fan that kept it reasonable cool, but it broke, and im in no mood to get another right now.

i kept the lappy on a thick book(smaller than lappy, so that the hdd section stuck a bit out) and placed the fan under the lappy next to the book. kludgy, but it worked. somewhat.

[gameranand]

Originally Posted by doomgiver

no such mode in win7
and it will still spin down the hdd

Its called Sleep mode in win 7.
And no it won't spin your HDD unless it need to your Laptop will be very silent.

Originally Posted by vineet369

PS: I couldn't helped giggling, reading gameranand's response! Since he provided such a short answer to such a Long question!

Well thats the solution that came to my mind and it fulfilled all OPs requirement so.....

[Vyom]

@doomgiver: Me also neither heard of a s/w that can do what you suggest, i.e., hold the content in RAM for some period, and then write to HDD after a certain threshold. In fact, I think, uTorrent has a similar feature, in built, which tries to minimize hard drive writes.

And, from your responses, I think, you might have missed one suggestion, which I wrote. I have quoted that for you:

Originally Posted by vineet369

So, the thing which OP maybe try, is to use some turbo mode of say, TuneUp Utilities, which effectively switches off any unnecessary background services, for as long as the user wants.
This mode can be very well used for running just the tasks which user desires, including downloading tasks!
Tell me, how does that suggestion sounds. Since I came up with it, just now!

[gameranand]

Well Tuneup will help but not that much because it doesn't switches off many background processes. I used it and quite frankly I was not very impressed by it.

[Vyom]

In that case, you may want to try Advanced System Care's Boost Mode. Since quite frankly, I too find TuneUp's turbo mode to be a FAIL in front of the former.

[gameranand]

Originally Posted by vineet369

In that case, you may want to try Advanced System Care's Boost Mode.

Is it free??? If not then I ain't gonna use it. I prefer freewares.
Although OP always have sleep mode.

[Vyom]

Although there is a paid version of Advanced System Care, but I use it's free version. And Boost mode is a part of the free one :-P
Advanced SystemCare Free 4 Download Review for Windows XP/Vista/7 - IObit

[gameranand]

Well then I'll give it a try.

[doomgiver]

gameranand, sleep mode pauses ALL programs.
the torrent client wont run.

vineet, yeah, i saw what you wrote. i dont use tune-up utils, but i'll give it a spin

[gameranand]

Originally Posted by doomgiver

gameranand, sleep mode pauses ALL programs.
the torrent client wont run.

No it will. Torrent client runs for some reasons. It works for me.

[doomgiver]

what os? hardware?

[gameranand]

Windows 7 and simple desktop
Intel Core2Duo E4400
Intel DG965RY Mobo
2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
2TB+320GB HDD

[arpanmukherjee1]

sleep mode didnt work for me. on win7
torrent client (uTorrent) is not downloading.

whats your client ?

[thetechfreak]

Sleep mode doesnt allow torrents to continue downloading (as far as I know)

What OP can do is that he can disable sleep mode when the lid is closed so that when the lid is closed screen turns of but downloads and everything continue.

[gameranand]

My client is Utorrent.

[abhidev]

Maybe if the laptop is plugged to power supply...maybe u can remove the batter and switch of the screen when kept overnight...this will reduce the power consumption,heat and also battery life will be improved

[sygeek]

I don't think any application connected with the internet will still be running after stand-by. There are routers meant for torrent downloads with GBs of space available in them, though I don't think you can afford them.

I recommend that you just switch your computer to safe mode and start the download, and turn off the monitor.

[Vyom]

Wow.. So many possible solutions! I am sure OP can find the one which best suits him.

Or too confused to try even one

[nisargshah95]

The ways I like -

1. Advanced SystemCare's 'Boost' mode / TuneUp Utilities's Turbo Mode (Although haven't tried any of them).
2. Shutting down useless processes yourself (by making a batch script so you will just have to double-click on that batch file when you want to shut down processes next time).
3. Turning off monitor and putting computer to 'Lock' (if Sleep doesn't work).
4. Even pulling off battery and letting the laptop go on power supply is good idea.
5. (LOL) Download torrent using Puppy linux live CD (Better still if you have it installed on a small partition).

[doomgiver]

Originally Posted by thetechfreak

Sleep mode doesnt allow torrents to continue downloading (as far as I know)

What OP can do is that he can disable sleep mode when the lid is closed so that when the lid is closed screen turns of but downloads and everything continue.

thats what i do

Originally Posted by abhidev

Maybe if the laptop is plugged to power supply...maybe u can remove the batter and switch of the screen when kept overnight...this will reduce the power consumption,heat and also battery life will be improved

yeah, i do that, but i connect my modem and laptop power brick to a ups, safer.

Originally Posted by SyGeek

I don't think any application connected with the internet will still be running after stand-by. There are routers meant for torrent downloads with GBs of space available in them, though I don't think you can afford them.

I recommend that you just switch your computer to safe mode and start the download, and turn off the monitor.

btw, will torrents download in safe mode? i thought win only loads the bare minimum drivers for that. please elaborate.

Originally Posted by nisargshah95

The ways I like -
1. Advanced SystemCare's 'Boost' mode / TuneUp Utilities's Turbo Mode (Although haven't tried any of them).
2. Shutting down useless processes yourself (by making a batch script so you will just have to double-click on that batch file when you want to shut down processes next time).
3. Turning off monitor and putting computer to 'Lock' (if Sleep doesn't work).
4. Even pulling off battery and letting the laptop go on power supply is good idea.
5. (LOL) Download torrent using Puppy linux live CD (Better still if you have it installed on a small partition).

i like 5, but puppy does not recognize any usb device also, it will still cause frequent disk writes, more so than windows coz transmission(the only client i know for linux) does not allow you to set the buffer.
for 2, if i list the processes, can you tell me which ones to end?

i think the best thing for me would be to see how i can increase the buffer/hold in ram size in utorrent, so that the hard drive is accessed less frequently.

[nisargshah95]

Originally Posted by doomgiver

for 2, if i list the processes, can you tell me which ones to end?

Okay, let me try. Or other members can help out out on this. Post a screenshot of your processes.