power management

Microsoft used WinHEC 2026 in mid-May to introduce a Windows Driver Quality Initiative for Windows 11 that broadens driver judging beyond crashes, adds power and thermal behavior to the scorecard, and pairs that prevention push with cloud-triggered rollback for faulty Windows Update drivers. The...

Microsoft has defended Windows 11’s Low Latency Profile after online critics accused the company of “cheating” by temporarily boosting CPU responsiveness for app launches and interface actions, with Microsoft executive Scott Hanselman arguing in May 2026 that the technique is normal...

Surface Charging Tray, a third-party Windows system-tray utility from developer keyokku, launched on May 9, 2026, to let Surface owners switch charging modes and Windows power modes without repeatedly opening Microsoft’s Surface app. That is a small app solving a small annoyance, but the...

Microsoft is reportedly testing a Windows 11 “Low Latency Profile” in Insider builds that briefly drives a PC’s CPU to maximum frequency for roughly one to three seconds when users launch apps or trigger priority shell actions such as Start, menus, and system flyouts. The pitch is simple: make...

I think this is the best forum to post this:) If not, let me know and I'll try to move or re-post. I have a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Hub with 6 Type A and 4 Type C ports. It is externally powered (AC adapter). For some reason, when a Type C connector is about to be connected (almost or just touching...

Microsoft has quietly tightened one of Windows 11’s most controversial subsystems: Modern Standby, the sleep model that promised phone-like instant wake but too often delivered mystery battery drain, hot laptop bags, and unwanted wake events. Newly surfaced Microsoft documentation shows that...

Linux systems that carry the affected aqc111 USB Ethernet driver are now being flagged for CVE-2026-23446, a vulnerability rooted in the driver’s suspend path and its improper use of power-management calls while the USB core is already suspending the device. The kernel-side fix is...

Windows is often blamed for making PCs feel slower than they should, and in many cases that complaint is less about raw horsepower than about the operating system’s own overhead. From background telemetry and startup bloat to legacy services, cloud tie-ins, and conservative power defaults, the...

Microsoft’s latest Canary build for Windows 11 makes one of the platform’s most aggravating power‑management quirks go away: global power settings set from the Settings app now actually apply across every power plan, not just the active one, and a handful of ancillary Settings and reliability...

Microsoft’s Windows ecosystem is moving in two parallel directions this month: a fresh Insider build that promises quieter, greener defaults and quality‑of‑life improvements across Settings, Narrator and Task Manager, and a major refresh to PowerToys that brings long‑requested utilities such as...

Microsoft appears to be quietly testing a restoration of a much‑requested customization option in Windows 11: the ability to remove unwanted quick‑action tiles from the Quick Settings panel. The change was first observed in the Dev‑channel preview build 26300.7965 and has been attributed to work...

When my PC sleeps so does my WI-FI. Some of my apps need WI-FI to updated, do backups etc. even when my PC sleeps. How do I keep the WI-FI awke.

If your shiny new NVMe or SATA SSD feels sluggish during daily use, the drive itself may not be to blame — Windows might be telling it to play safe. The operating system’s default storage removal policy can force the SSD to acknowledge writes only after safer, slower steps complete, turning a...

Windows 11’s long-standing battery and power-management tools have finally extended a meaningful hand to desktop users: Energy Saver (often referred to in early previews as Power Saving Mode) can now be enabled on systems that never leave the wall socket. The switch — exposed in Settings and...

The Linux kernel received a narrowly scoped but operationally important fix for a warning that could surface during power‑management resume on systems using Broadcom's raw NAND controller driver — the issue is tracked as CVE‑2025‑37840 and resolves an uninitialized nand_operation used during PM...

Microsoft has quietly implemented a practical, user‑facing fix for one of the most persistent annoyances in modern Windows laptops: unexpected wake events during Modern Standby that quietly siphoned battery life overnight. The change—part of Windows 11, version 24H2 and reinforced through recent...

Microsoft quietly confirmed what users have been asking for: Modern Standby in Windows 11 will stop allowing most background activity to forcibly wake a sleeping PC and draining its battery, because beginning with Windows 11, version 24H2 the OS now limits wake sources when excessive drain is...

Microsoft’s latest admission that the January hibernation fix still isn’t universal turns what began as a narrow, configuration‑dependent regression into a broader reliability headache for enterprises and device makers alike. On January 30 Microsoft updated its Release Health dashboard to...

Microsoft has confirmed that the shutdown-and-hibernation regression triggered by January’s Patch Tuesday affects a broader set of enterprise-grade configurations than originally disclosed: an out-of-band fix addressed many Secure Launch cases, but systems using Virtual Secure Mode (VSM) remain...

Windows 11 quietly contains more battery tools than most users realize — from a deep, technician-grade battery report you can generate in under a minute to new, hidden taskbar battery UI options being tested in Insider builds. These features give ordinary laptop owners and power users alike the...