save laptop power

A dual core laptop (intel Core Duo T2500) runs with 2 cores and 4MB of
shared cache. If I disable 1 core then it leaves one core, which then has
the full 4MB cache all the time. My question is, would disabling a core cut
the power consumption of the laptop enough to increase battery time
noticably?

Full specs:

Dell Inspiron 6400 (the one that enjoyed a cup of tea and a new motherboard
recently)
T2500 intel dual core 2GHz
2 x 1GB DDR 553
1 x 80GB hard drive
15.4" 1680x1050 fancy screen (shiny)
wireless card
network card
USB mouse
DVD drive (rarely used)

With regard to network connection - either the wired rj45 or the wireless is
active all the time.

On Wed, 28 May 2008 09:50:03 +0100, "GT"
<ContactGT_removeme_@hotmail.com> wrote:

>A dual core laptop (intel Core Duo T2500) runs with 2 cores and 4MB of
>shared cache. If I disable 1 core then it leaves one core, which then has
>the full 4MB cache all the time. My question is, would disabling a core cut
>the power consumption of the laptop enough to increase battery time
>noticably?
>

I doubt it, with two cores it just gets done milliseconds
quicker and goes back to a lower power state on both cores
sooner.

However, if you were running a linear task at continual full
load, disabling one would do that but at the obvious cost of
performance.

>Full specs:
>
>Dell Inspiron 6400 (the one that enjoyed a cup of tea and a new motherboard
>recently)
>T2500 intel dual core 2GHz
>2 x 1GB DDR 553
>1 x 80GB hard drive
>15.4" 1680x1050 fancy screen (shiny)
>wireless card
>network card
>USB mouse
>DVD drive (rarely used)
>
>With regard to network connection - either the wired rj45 or the wireless is
>active all the time.
>

The best way to save power is use the manufacturer's power
management app to put the CPU at lower speed. There is also
some software that allows you to tailor this yourself,
though I forget all the details of using it.
http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml
If you set this utility to throttle back voltage too far you
can easily corrupt data on your hard drive!... and yet, for
maximum power savings you will need to do just that, only by
seeing where it is too low can you see where it is also as
low as it can go... then I would leave at least an extra
voltage notch or two to be conservative. Backup all data on
the drive then after you're finished fine tuning, scan the
drive for errors and restore the data if necessary.