A complete picture of the energy consumption of a portable computer

High battery lifetime is important to the usabil-ity and acceptance of portable computers. In order to develop strategies to minimize power consumption , designers need a good picture of the total power consumption of a system. For this purpose , we indicate the power consumptions of a set of portable computers and how they are broken down among the components of those computers. Then, we use user prooles to show how the use of power-saving features currently implemented serves to reduce these power consumptions by 35{56%. We also show how these power-saving features aaect the breakdown of overall power consumption, so that we can evaluate how successful certain new software techniques and hardware changes would be at reducing power consumption. The results of this paper point out the most promising avenues for further work in the reduction of power consumption, and indicate some strategies that can provide an immediate power beneet to the class of machines studied.

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