Some computers (e.g. Dell, Vaio) come with software that prevents a battery from charging.
This functionality allows me to use my laptop with battery (protected from power outage) and keep my battery from charging until it's down to, at most, 50% battery/charge remaining.
I want do write some code to automate this task.
I searched Dell Support Center for a solution, and I searched Google, too - no luck with either.
I thought about downloading the program and debugging it, but I couldn't find it.
Has anyone ever seen something like this?
Thanks
PS: I want to do this on a Dell Inspiron, and the code can be in C++/C# (or something)
I've never heard of a program that disables battery charging. (Why on earth would you want this?) If such programs exist, I imagine that they interact with the firmware or hardware at a very primitive level.
One thing you can try is a busy loop (burning power like mad) that checks the battery level and sleeps for a bit once it gets down to the target level. This won't do good things to the cpu temperature, however.
Some laptops come with battery charge limiting functionality - it is not via software though, but via firmware plus dedicated internal hardware I guess. Some Lenovo and Acer have such capability. The logic is not in software as the charge limiter kicks in even when the laptop is off.
The reason is that battery degrade when kept at 100% - as it is the case with laptops that are always plugged in. The new Acer Swift would limit at 80%, some Lenovo let one input a particular value.
If interested I can provide you with the software side - it works on Windows and Linux but can easily be available on MacOS. It works in conjunction with external hardware - i.e. a homeplug.
The code works but it's by no means production ready. It would need a bit of tweaking for a particular operating system and homeplug. Let know if interested.
Available on github: Charge Limiter
Related
I am hoping this is a relatively simple answer. Ive always been interested in ar, and I've been debating about tinkering with a possibly ar driven ui for mobile.
I guess the only real question would be having the camera continuously turned on, how much battery would that use? i.e. would it be too much for something like this to be worth doing?
Battery drain is one of the biggest issues in the smartphones nowadays. I'm not a specialist in power consumption or battery life or whatever but anyone having and using a smartphone (not only for calls of course) would not be wrong by saying this. There are many tips on the internet teaching you how to increase the battery life. In fact processes running on your device need energy and that energy is provided by the battery.
To answer your question, I've been using the smartphones' cameras for AR applications since quite long time now. It's a heavy process and indeed it drains the battery faster than other processes. On the other hand you also have to consider the other processes running on your device while your AR application is used. For example your app might use the device's sensors (gyroscope, GPS, etc); these processes are draining the battery also. A simple test that you might do is to charge your device, start the camera and leave it until the battery dies. Well that's exactly how much the camera would drain the battery (you can even measure the time). Of course you might want to turn off everything else running on the device.
To answer your second question, it depends how the application is created (many things can be optimized a lot!) and how it's going to be used. If the goal of the application is to be used continuously for hours and hours then you need to wait for some other kind of technology being discovered (joking..I hope) or having extra power supply attached to your device. I think it's worth doing the application and optimize it on the fly and also in the end when everything is up an running. If the camera is the only issue then I'm sure it's worth trying!
The Problem
I'm working on a research project and need to get the Toshiba Bluetooth Stack to work with 3rd party hardware, a long range Bluetooth receiver, in a Windows 8 environment.
It worked fine for the first month, but then I got a message stating that the "Evaluation Period" had ended. (similar forum complaint)
Does anyone have an idea as to how I can disable the flag that's causing the evaluation period message or any other way to work around the software to get this up and running?
An interesting observation is that we do use the short range Toshiba wart dongles elsewhere in the lab with the same software. It works fine for those, but gets aggressive with the third party equipment. I've had to do related research with the short-range dongles and they can barely work for my purposes, with a lot of workarounds
Constraints
Both of my research devices are Bluetooth. One's a Wii Remote, so there's lots of work arounds out there, but the other is expensive, proprietary equipment that the (small) developer only really built to work with the Toshiba Stack
I've tried dealing with the Windows 8.1 stack, but it's highly unreliable, fussy to setup, and doesn't give me the COM port control I really need.
I've tried contacting the manufacturer of the Bluetooth receiver, but they're some thinly supported Chinese developer and haven't responded back to me
I've tried looking for alternatives to the Bluetooth receiver, but haven't had much luck, as most people have given up on applications involving long-range bluetooth.
I really need to stay with my proprietary hardware provider, as they've got other, unique hardware-related specifications that are necessary.
Fantastic solution from [Mike at Closet Junk] http://mikescloset.blogspot.com/2011/12/dell-toshiba-bluetooth-350-and-windows.html
Edit the Registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Toshiba\BluetoothStack\V1.0\Mng. Add a new DWORD key called TestVersion. Set it equal to 1.
I would like to adjust the CPU frequency , in other word, looking for an API or c++ code for frequency scaling in windows ?
In Windows, you can call SetPriorityClass to set the priority of the process
You can also set the priority of a thread by calling SetThreadPriority
The CPU clock speed is not something for which there are just some simple instructions to execute. The clock speed is controlled by the motherboard chipset, and that in turn is controlled by a motherboard-specific device driver.
You can get some control over the clock speed by using the Windows settings for power management. The usual way to slow things down and save energy is to choose a setting on this basis. Modern laptop, tablet and phone computers have extremely sophisticated algorithms but you can hint them in the direction of less power.
You may be able to automate the operation of these Windows programs, if that's all you need.
Many motherboards come with the ability to overclock, and a utility to control it. If you have such a motherboard you may be able to find a way to automate its control program, or it may provide an API. It will not be a generic solution, but one highly specific to the motherboard. Check with your motherboard supplier.
Is there a general Windows capability to do this? Not so far as I know, but there could be something hiding in there somewhere. It will be privileged call to a device driver requiring admin rights, if it exists. My be is that it doesn't.
You can use: PowerWriteDCValueIndex(); / PowerWriteACValueIndex(); with PowerSetActiveScheme(NULL, pwrGUID);
recently this post inspired me, I want to track my own life, too.
I take a look at my cellphone's clock every time when go to sleep or after wake up, so I need some program to hook to my cellphone's on/off button, and log the timestamp when I press it.
I am using WM6.5 on a HTC TyTN II. If there is existing software that can do this with few settings and tweaks it would be nice, but I can also write code myself. Any suggestions?
You can use the device power notifications by P/Invoking RequestPowerNotifications to know when a power state changes (there's a CodeProject article that covers this as well). Be aware that the power down notification doesn't wait for subscribers to run code, so in most cases your application's handler doesn't actually run until the device wakes back up (meaning that if you're writing a timestamp or something you're going to get the wake time, not the sleep time).
Also be aware that different devices handle power management differently, so YMMV.
This is more tricky than you could possibly imagine!
The 'on/off' button isn't directly available to the OS (i.e. it's not visible in the keypad driver), as it is hooked into a rather complex system of power collapse (basically, the Apps CPU is completely powered down when the phone is 'off' - the modem wakes up according to the network-configured paging cycle).
The wake-sleep interactions of the two CPUs are extremely complex, and prone to race conditions. Even if you managed to hook it (which would require deep kernel-level programming and a number of security hacks), you would probably make your phone very unstable.
There is some easily available information on finding the status of a battery, or whether it's charging or not. (GetSystemPowerStatus API or System.Windows.Forms.SystemInformation.PowerStatus).
I want to be able to stop a battery from charging based on some criteria, e.g. battery power > 20%.
Is there an API to do this?
I think it's impossible, because you have need some API for battery or battery charger.
And this API can provide to you manufacturer of notebook and battery or battery charger support this.
I honestly don't know, but I'd have a look at the APM or ACPI APIs.
Other than that, the only option I can think of right now is a USB controlled robotic arm that ejects the battery when you need to stop charging, but that's probably not what you are looking for, and borders on the complicator's glove in terms of level of over-engineering. :)
I would just get a UPS and programatically tell it to cut all power... most should have an interface for doing this. Otherwise, as someone already said - a computer-controlled power strip would do it ^^
I've actually played with this idea when I was testing/writing about way too many new laptop models a while ago and the battery testing was annoying to set up, monitor and analyze.
I wrote an app that would do exactly everything (setup, listening, measuring, reporting) except unplugging the power and then replugging it and starting the computer again...
One of the options is to get hold of the device(I) for battery (Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery).
Listen for PowerNotification events forever. On each notification check the PowerStatus of the battery.
There are APIs for all of the above purposes in .Net and win32
Keep the device(I) disabled as long as the powerstatus is >threshold. Enable it as soon as goes below that or when you are not on AC power (i.e. before removing AC power, your continuously monitoring software should enable that battery device - or you manually enable it).
hmm,...this is a very buggy solution, but it can achieve what you want, although you have to be very careful.
Actually I use such a charge limiter. There is the control software - a Python script that monitors the battery level (psutil module) and controls external hardware - i.e. a switch that can be software controlled. I have Energenie and TP-Link homeplugs plus my own hardware contraption.
As it is for home use the software it's not polished at all, but with minimal effort can be adapted to any OS or hardware.
Let know if interested. The software lives here: CCC