britain4 wrote:

Does anyone here run CPUidle? I'm wanting to use it on a laptop but I can't find a working copy anywhere, they all say the trial's expired...

It sounds like you're asking for cracked software/warez, if this is true, ask somewhere else, this is not an abandonware site.

Also, no, I've never used CPUIdle before.

No I’m just asking where to get it - I don’t mind paying for it or however else it is legally distributed but their website is down.

britain4 wrote:

they all say the trial's expired...

So they either don't work after a hard-coded date any longer, or they are not year 2000-aware and fail because of that. Either way, what does that program do at all? Sure there are alternatives.

This driver detects if CPU is doing nothing (i.e. waiting for input) and puts it into "idle" state, which makes CPU consume less energy and produce less heat. According to manual, it also does some tricks with CPU that makes system run a bit faster.
I'm using version 2.51 on 5x86 working at 120mhz. I don' t see any big differences between using it and not loading it to memory. Anyway, it eats only 2kb memory and it does not cause any unstabilities (it hangs PC when loaded to high memory while EMM386 is installed though, so I' m loading it to base memory), so it is loaded most of the time.

Ltsyrek wrote:

I don' t see any big differences between using it and not loading it to memory. Anyway, it eats only 2kb memory and it does not cause any unstabilities (it hangs PC when loaded to high memory while EMM386 is installed though, so I' m loading it to base memory), so it is loaded most of the time.

Sounds like a good reason to still use it... well, no. 😊

A possible free alternative for DOS systems (and Win95/98 DOS Box) is DOSIdle. I mainly used it under VirtualPC with DOS 6.22 in order not to use 1 core at 100% all the time (and it worked).
https://maribu.home.xs4all.nl/zeurkous/downlo … or/dosidle.html

I'm using DOSIdle, too. 😀 It has different switches, so someone can set when it should become active.
This is nice, because some programs appear to be iddle, even though they are doing something.
Alternatively, there also was power.exe in DOS 6. but I never really used that.

For Windows 3.1, I also use WQGHLT. It requires Enhanced-Mode, though.
And for Windows 98SE, I use Amnhlt. Though, technically, WQGHLT should also run there..

I’m using a Libretto 110ct and it was specifically recommended (back in the day) to increase battery life, which it does seem to, and has the bonus of keeping it cooler since I’m running mine at 266/300mhz. I wouldn’t bother running it on a desktop but extra battery life would be handy.

I installed it with the year set to current - and it will only run if I set the date to 2007 (at which point it says I have 8000 odd days left on the trial) so it seems to be a hard coded date it expires at.

Anyway thanks I will try some of the alternatives suggested 😀