Power Options - Add or Remove "Min/Max processor state"

[Brink]

ByLine

How to Add or Remove Minimum processor state and Maximum processor state in Power Options in Windows

Synopsis

This will show you how to add or remove the Minimum processor state and Maximum processor state setting under Processor power management in Power Options for all users in Windows.

How to Add or Remove "Minimum processor state" and "Maximum processor state" in Power Options in Windows​

The Minimum processor state is the minimum performance percentage your CPU will automatically decrease to save energy and battery life when there is little CPU demand by the system. You would want to keep this percentage the same or lower than the Maximum processor state setting.

The Maximum processor state is the maximum percentage performance your CPU will automatically increase to save energy and battery life when CPU demand increases. You would want to keep this percentage the same or higher than the Minimum processor state setting.

This tutorial will show you how to add or remove the "Minimum processor state" and "Maximum processor state" setting under Processor power management in Power Options for all users in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

   Note

This could be handy if you wanted to set this how you wanted, then remove the setting to prevent other users from being able to change it in Power Options.

If you enable virtualization in your BIOS or UEFI settings like below, then the Minimum processor state and Maximum processor state power options will not be available, even if you set them to be added.

Only when virtualization is disabled in BIOS/UEFI will Minimum processor state and Maximum processor state be available in your Power Options.

EXAMPLE: "Minimum processor state" and "Maximum processor state" in Power Options

OPTION ONE

Add or Remove "Minimum processor state" in Power Options

   Note

The .reg files below are for the registry key and value below.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\893dee8e-2bef-41e0-89c6-b55d0929964c

Attributes DWORD

1 = Remove
2 = Add

1. Do step 2 or 3 below for what you would like to do.

2. To Remove "Minimum processor state" from Power Options

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Remove_Minimum_processor_state.reg



3. To Add "Minimum processor state" to Power Options
NOTE: This is the default setting.

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Add_Minimum_processor_state.reg



4. Save the .reg file to your desktop.

5. Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

6. If prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC Windows 7/8) or Continue (UAC Vista), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

7. When finished, you can delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.

OPTION TWO

Add or Remove "Maximum processor state" in Power Options

   Note

The .reg files below are for the registry key and value below.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\bc5038f7-23e0-4960-96da-33abaf5935ec

Attributes DWORD

1 = Remove
2 = Add

1. Do step 2 or 3 below for what you would like to do.

2. To Remove "Maximum processor state" from Power Options

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Remove_Maximum_processor_state.reg



3. To Add "Maximum processor state" to Power Options
NOTE: This is the default setting.

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Add_Maximum_processor_state.reg



4. Save the .reg file to your desktop.

5. Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

6. If prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC Windows 7/8) or Continue (UAC Vista), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

7. When finished, you can delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.


That's it,
Shawn

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[Legjendat]

Is there any way to change the min/max values from the registry or through a batch script or something? When I play games my laptop gets hot, so I switch the max value to 94% just to disable the turbo boost, which in turn lowers my max cpu temp from 100 degrees Celsius to something more acceptable like 70-80, and after I'm done playing I switch back the max cpu power to 100% again. Needless to say this process is very boring, and if I could do all those commands with a double click it'd be awesome.

 

[Brink]

Hello Legjendat,

As a workaround, you could add the context menu in the tutorial below to be able to quickly change power plans on demand. This way you could set two power plans each how you like for the processor state, and use the context menu to toggle between them.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/22673-power-plan-choose-desktop-context-menu-windows.html

 

[Legjendat]

Hmm, that's a very good solution as well so Thank You for the fast response, but while I was googling, I found exactly what I was looking for. A tutorial to change the power through a batch file. If you want, you can add it as part of this or some other tutorial.

You create a batch file, and add the following commands.

The commands are simple, and you just change the values at the end of each row.

powercfg -setacvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCTHROTTLEMIN 5
powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCTHROTTLEMIN 5
powercfg -setacvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCTHROTTLEMAX 94
powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCTHROTTLEMAX 94
powercfg.exe -setactive SCHEME_CURRENT

setacvalueindex is for when the power cord is connected while setdcvalueindex is for when you're not connected to a power plug. I just created two batch files, one for gaming with the stats above and one for full power with max values set at 100, nice and easy

 

[Brink]

:thumb:

 

[Cloudtime]

Hello Martin, thanks so much for this great info. I'm using the TrekStor Wintron 7.0 Tablet with Windows 10, and these processor state options were missing. I don't know if these were removed intentionally, but nevertheless it has worked. During low demanding tasks the processor liked to be at full clock speed very often. Now it's finally not the case anymore, and as the average battery runtime of this device are 2 hours, this is very helpful.

And I'm a bit confused about this sentence:

Only when virtualization is disabled in BIOS/UEFI will Minimum processor state and Maximum processor state be available in your Power Options.

On my main computer this option is enabled, and processor states are available. During tests with Windows 8.1 and 10, it is the case too. The tablet also supports virtualization, but I don't know if it was missing because of that. It has luckily still worked anyway

By the way I have to say, I have seen your tips and posts previously many times through my Google searches. And it's always so helpful. Thank you again!

 

[Brink]

I'm glad it could help Cloudtime, and welcome to Eight Forums.

 

[theataripunk]

Hmm... This did not seem to work for me.

I downloaded and used the files as instructed, however the options are still not present for me. The strangest part about this is that I incorrectly set them earlier today, and I need to set them back, but now they're gone... I did tinker around in the BIOS in between setting them, but I'm not exactly sure what I hit there that may have affected the settings... I know about the virtualization option having something to do with it, but I've deactivated it so that shouldn't be hiding the options. The only thing I can think is that disabling Intel Speedstep may be the culprit, but I really don't want to have to turn that crap back on, even just to see if that affects the options. What is left that could still be hiding them?

 

[Brink]

Hello theataripunk, and welcome to Eight Forums.

As a test, enable Intel Speedstep in BIOS, and see if the settings are back in Power Options afterwards.

 

[nabeel]

i have tried all the things above the problem is i cant get my minimum processor state to 5% it set it back to 100% and its eating up my battery how can i set it to 5% i have tried this command powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCTHROTTLEMIN 5
but it is not working the command line says "The value specified is malformed, or is not within the range of the target power setting."
i have enabled and disabled virtualization still it is not working.

 

[Brink]

Hello Nabeel, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Check to see if you may have Intel Power Management or some other 3rd party utility installed that may be overriding your Windows power plan settings.

 

[xXChrisXx]

Sorry for sounding like a noob but wouldn't choosing a power plan like high performance in Power Options fix all this? Or is there something I don't know?

 

[Brink]

Hello Chris, and welcome to Eight Forums.

No worries. See my signature about asking questions.

These two settings are to be able to set the min/max processor state to what you may want them to be other than the default defined by the active power plan.

 

[neromaster]

other options?

When I set maximum state to anything other than 100% it locks my cpu to its base frequency. Is there a way to set a max frequency instead? On a laptop if that makes a difference.

 

[Brink]

Hello neromaster, and welcome to Eight Forums.

What power plan are you using?

The "High Performance" plan should use whatever you set for max.

 

[neromaster]

The balanced plan is the only one available to me

and do not know what my minimum is because I do not have that as an option. I don't have any processor power management available by default, which is why I came here to add them.

 

[neromaster]

So I did some looking around and there is a way to limit the clockspeed instead of the max state, however I have no idea how to make that setting available to me. I think this might get around the problem with the clockspeed being locked to base when I change the max state.

 

[Brink]

The "balanced" power plan will usually run your processor at it's minimum setting, and will increase it as needed up to the set maximum.

Since you are using "balanced", it would be best to leave the max set to 100%.

 

[pechius]

Hello! I can' get Minimum/Maximum processor state in power options. I used reg files and then confirmed in regeditor and all values are there, but the option is still missing. Is there something else I can do? I'm running a terribly old and outdated system, but still would like to get this to work. I also tried disabling virtual machine mode in BIOS (AMD proc), but that didn't change anything.

 

[Brink]

Hello pechius, and welcome to Eight Forums.

It may not be supported by your processor, or an issue with BIOS.

If you like, you could try manually setting this in the command prompt using the commands below. Substitute the bit in red with the percentage number you want instead.

(Minimum processor state)
(plugged in) powercfg -setacvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCTHROTTLEMIN 5
(on battery) powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCTHROTTLEMIN 5

(Maximum processor state)
(plugged in) powercfg -setacvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCTHROTTLEMAX 100
(on battery) powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCTHROTTLEMAX 100