Managing Your Battery Power; Power-Saving Modes - Lenovo ThinkPad T420 User Manual

• Use the battery until the charge is completely depleted-until the battery status indicator starts blinking
orange.
• Recharge the battery completely before using it. The battery is fully charged if the battery indicator shows
green when the ac power adapter is plugged in.
• For a new battery or a battery that you have not used recently, do one of the following:
1. Recharge the battery completely before using it. The battery is fully charged when the ac power
adapter is plugged in and the battery indicator is green.
2. Use the battery until the charge is completely depleted-until the battery status indicator starts
blinking orange.
• Always use power management features such as power modes, screen blank, sleep (standby), and
hibernation.

Managing your battery power

With Power Manager, you can adjust your power settings to give you the best balance between performance
and power saving.
To start the utility program, do as follows:
• For Windows 7: See "Accessing applications in Windows 7" on page 19.
• For Windows Vista and Windows XP: Click Start ➙ All Programs ➙ ThinkVantage ➙ Power Manager.
For more information about the Power Manager program, refer to the on-line help of the program.

Power-saving modes

There are several modes that you can use at any time to conserve power. This section introduces each
mode and gives tips on the effective use of the battery power.
Introducing the power-saving modes
• Screen blank. The computer display requires considerable battery power. To turn off power to the
display, do as follows:
1. Press Fn+F3. A panel for selecting a power plan (in Windows XP, power scheme) appears.
2. Select Power off display (keep current power plan) (in Windows XP, keep current power scheme).
Notes: You can also turn off the computer display as follows:
1. Press Fn+F3. A panel for selecting a power plan (in Windows XP, power scheme) appears.
2. Select Fn+F3 Settings.
3. Select Power off display.
4. Click OK. The next time you press Fn+F3, you can turn off the computer display.
• Sleep (standby in Windows XP). In sleep (standby) mode, your work is saved to memory, and then the
solid state drive or the hard disk drive and the computer display are turned off. When your computer
wakes up, your work is restored within seconds.
To put your computer into sleep (standby) mode, press Fn+F4. To return from sleep (standby) mode,
press the Fn key.
• Hibernation. By using this mode, you can turn off your computer completely without saving files or
exiting from any applications that are running. When you enter hibernation, all open applications, folders,
and files are saved to the hard disk, and then the computer turns off. To enter hibernation, press Fn+F12.
To resume your session, press the power button for no more than 4 seconds.
.
Chapter 2 Using your computer
39