UPDATED! First i want to thank Noda for creating such a wonderful utility for all of us using the Acer Aspire One. http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=6063 If it wasnt for him and his love for the community, i would have not learned all i did trying to add some small tweaks. I added tweaks because i did a successful bluetooth mod, but i wanted to still save some battery life using the a1ctl. I am also a battery life freak, so i wanted to know how much power i was gaining disabling it, so i added a small monitor window to see the stats. To use it with your own Bluetooth device i have added 6 new settings under the a1ctl.ini file: EXAMPLE: [Devices] Bluetooth="""USB\VID_1131*""" 3G="""USB\VID_3Gblabla*""" [Dependencies] Dependency_Bluetooth=BsMobileCS.exe&BlueSoleilCS.exe Dependency_3G= [Tasks] Close=notepad.exe&wmplayer.exe&cmd.exe Open=/////Not working yet In my example my device id is USB\VID_1131 and i need to kill BsMobileCS.exe and BlueSoleilCS.exe to disable it if they are running. Just look under your device manager -> Bluetooth -> right click -> properties -> Details Tab -> and use the VID you will find there, and put it in the configuration file like this: """USB\VID_1131*""" All the way till the & and replace the "&" with a "*" Programs that need to be closed before turning off a device can be specified like this: BsMobileCS.exe&BlueSoleilCS.exe To find the device dependencies is more complicated, you will need to find out if you have any at all first, if you can disable the device without having to close any programs, then you can leave all the settings blank, or just use one, doesnt matter which one: [Devices] Bluetooth= 3G= [Dependencies] Dependency_Bluetooth= Dependency_3G= [Tasks] Close= Open= To close programs (requested) just put the name of the executables one after another using the & sign: notepad.exe&wmplayer.exe&cmd.exe just like in dependencies. If you dont have a bluetooth, you can leave all the settigns blank and it wont waste resources at all or you can use the settings to disable other devices too. All those with bluetooth, Enjoy. DOWNLOAD: http://alvarofrank.com/Documents/A1ctlMod.rar Modifications to Noda's Original release: 1- Bluetooth and 3G device can be turned off and on Note: Programs that need to be closed before turning off a device need to be specified in the INI file 2- A Monitor window was added to see the battery discharge rate in mW (useful to see how much battery you are actually saving by disabling some devices) This small monitor window can also track battery life, CPU frequency and CPU temps. The battery discharge rate in mW can also be seen in the tooltip. The extra files contained in the distribution are: * taskkill.exe A windows binary file Copyright by Microsoft used to kill applications, like in the task manager. Here is used to kill Bluesolei services allowing Bluetooth devices running Bluesolei stack to be disabled without restart *PowerMan.dll A DLL Copyright (c) 200*, Yolda used to get system information like battery discharge rates and CPU frequency. I used this as a small "bridge" between the complicated calls from the windows API and the outdated VB6. *Source Files All sources files, including Noda's original sourcefiles and my DLL source files are included. The main Aplication is based in VB6 and the DLL using c++ and codeblocks with a gcc std compiler. Version Changes: I have added some info about versioning to help people track both versions of the program. My mods will have 100X added prior to the original version # 1001.4.19: -added 3G device Support -added Application Close option -Monitor window stays on top -Ini File changes TO Do List: -Add a dynamic device manager with profiles. -Add a CPU load tracker, like the one in the famous RM-Clock-Utility -Port it to C++ for performance reasons -Add a small CPU C'state manager with voltage control.
Re: a1ctl Bluetooth MOD and more what a great addition! I love your program! However, I have a few suggestions 1. Can you make it so that the monitor is default to be always on top? 2. Can you make it so that instead of killing bluetooth devices only, you can use that command to kill programs instead? I like to kill antivirus programs when I am not online and using battery.
Re: a1ctl Bluetooth MOD and more 1. Sure let me figure out how lol. 2. Hmmm an app killer interesting feature, as long as you dont use it to kill important process rofl. Any other Suggestions?
Re: a1ctl Bluetooth MOD and more the kill process function is pretty urgently needed, bu7t please to label it as an expert feature
Done Updated, i still dont know how to implement the "Run" utility tho. If someone closes apps to save power, they will want to open them back once they get to an outlet source :ugeek:
yolda, you rock! just a small suggestion for possible new functionality. Can you possible make it so there is an option to display the detailed stats of the battery and wear level and such? Personally I use another software to read this data, but would be nice if everything is all in one place.
What software? get me a link and i will do some research, always eager to steal code... echem... learn :geek:
google for notebook battery info. I am not sure if it's open source, but Notebook hardware control also have this stuff, the specific battery info. If you do have time, can you educate us general public as in how does the battery wear estimate work? Also, you can do all the aspire one user a favor by prolonging their battery life greatly if you can manage to do this "can you limit the percent of charge to 40%"? that is, the battery charger stops charging the battery at 40%. ideally you should be able to toggle between the 40% state and 100% state. for usual home/office application, the 40% charge will allow prolong lifespan of the battery, for travels, 100% charge is desired.
as for how to achieve limitation of charge, I believe the charger stops charging at a certain amount of voltage. to determine when to stop charging at 40%, I am gueessing you can just take the voltage your battery is at when it reaches 40% charge, and trick the ACPI controller into thinking that charging stops at that voltage. notable software such as thinkpad power management suite has this feature.
The data so far: Wear level cant be really retrieved from the battery, it needs to be manually calculated from the desgined capacity and the current actual capacity at 100%. I dont trust such data because my dell e1705 thats over 3 years old now, has a wear level of just 1%. And we know dell has not such a good reputation The Current i think its also calculated from the discharge rate and the voltage, since there is no physical value in the system nor the battery as far as i can tell. I will add sometime during this week: -desgined capcity, -current capacity -wear down level -current Voltage and Current About the threshold, i will look into it, there is no standard api to do that so direct I/O operations are required, like with the fan management. Figuring out the port and required data/settings takes some time. http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Maintenance
Right now i am working on a voltage control DLL. Current cpu speed dynamic steppings, both OS/ACPI and IO implemented, set the voltage of the cpu at 1.2XXv when running at 1.8ghz. I managed to Set it manually to a very low setting near 1v manually by modifying the MBR registry in the CPU. But it keeps getting reset all the time. Downvolting the CPU lowers the cpu temperatures. Trying to set up the extra battery information too. :geek:
