Learn how to use Energy Star X, a free and open-source app that optimizes your laptop’s battery life by using Windows 11’s efficiency mode. Save power and get more out of your laptop with this simple and effective tool.
Introduction:
Do you find the battery life of your laptop too short? Laptop owners worldwide continue to worry primarily about battery life.
While hardware manufacturers strive to enhance battery life, software optimization is equally important.
Enter Energy Star X, a smart program that can prolong your laptop’s battery life by enabling Windows 11’s “efficiency mode” feature in the Task Manager.
Understanding the Windows 11 Task Manager “Efficiency Mode”
Windows 11 introduced a new feature in its Task Manager called “Efficiency Mode” that can significantly boost your laptop’s battery life.
Efficiency Mode limits the resources used by background apps and processes, saving precious power. However, not all apps support this mode by default. This is where Energy Star X steps in, bridging the gap.
What is Energy Star X?
This is free and open-source software that maximizes your laptop battery life by utilizing the “efficiency mode” in the Windows 11 Task Manager.
It forces all running apps and processes into Efficiency Mode, restricting their power usage. This allows for big reductions in power consumption without compromising performance for most tasks.
Energy Star X is essentially a graphical interface for the open-source program EnergyStar. This program, built using the Windows App SDK (WinUI 3), takes advantage of the EcoQoS API introduced in Windows 11, which is referred to as “efficiency mode.”
Energy Star X helps your laptop last much longer between charges by limiting the power used by background programs.
Required Configuration
To get the best results with this app, you should have:
- Windows 11 22H2 (Build 22621) or later
- 10th generation or newer Intel processors
- AMD Ryzen 5000 or newer processors
This application may run on older versions of Windows 11 and with older hardware, but the results may not be as good.
Installation and Setup:
Downloading and setting up the software is straightforward. Follow these steps:
- Visit the and download the app.
- Once the application is installed, run it and let it run in the background in the notification area.
- You can also configure the application to start automatically when your PC boots up from the program settings.
- When the application operates efficiently, you’ll notice a distinctive green leaf icon beside background processes in Windows 11 Task Manager’s “Status” column.
- You can add apps to the whitelist if you want them to be excluded from Efficiency Mode. This is useful for apps that you know have problems with Efficiency Mode.
Conclusion
Energy Star X is a powerful tool for extending your laptop’s battery life. By taking advantage of Windows 11’s efficiency mode, this app can significantly reduce power consumption and help you get more out of your battery.
⚠️ Important note: If you observe any malfunctions with certain applications, add them to the whitelist through the application settings. This will prevent the efficiency mode from being activated for those affected applications.