How-To

How to Make Your Laptop Faster with Windows 11 Power Mode

By Brian Burgess

Published February 4, 2022

If your laptop seems sluggish when it’s running on battery power, you may need to switch Windows 11 power mode on. Here’s how.

If you want to increase the performance of your Windows 11 laptop, one way is to adjust the power options. In Windows 10, you could use a power-performance slider to easily adjust power. When you click the battery icon on the Windows 10 taskbar, you’ll see a slider that allows you to lower performance for extended battery life.

The same functionality to speed up your laptop exists in Windows 11, but it’s got a new name (and a new location). If you want to make your laptop faster using Windows 11 power mode, here’s what you’ll need to do.

Using Windows 11 Power Mode

Out of the box, a Windows 11 laptop is set to provide as good a battery life as possible—performance comes second. This can be good for all-day laptop use if you’re just browsing the web and doing word processing. However, there will be times when you’ll need to use the maximum power of your laptop to get things done.

That’s where Windows 11 power mode comes in. You can quickly adjust your power settings on Windows 11 to switch power mode on by following these steps:

1. Click the Start button and select the Settings icon from the Start menu.
   • Alternately, you can use the keyboard shortcut Windows key + I to open Settings directly.

2. When Settings opens, go to System > Power & battery.

3. Next, scroll down to the Power mode option under the Power section.
4. Select Best performance from the Windows 11 Power mode dropdown menu.

4. Power mode will increase performance but reduce battery life, so you may also want to adjust your battery settings further. To do this, expand the Battery saver option and select to turn it on automatically after a set percentage. You can also turn on the option to lower screen brightness when Battery saver mode is on.

With power mode set to Best performance, your laptop battery will drain faster when it’s not plugged into a power source. Also, it’ll only drain fast if the laptop is actively being used while on battery power, but not while it’s in sleep mode.

How to Adjust Power Options via Control Panel on Windows 11

It’s also worth noting that you can still adjust power options in Control Panel on Windows 11.

To adjust power options through Control Panel on Windows 11, do the following:

1. Launch the Start menu by clicking the Start button or pressing the Windows key.
2. Type control panel and select the top result.

2. Click Power Options in the Control Panel window.

3. Next, choose the power option you want to use. Check the High performance option to get the most performance from your laptop.
   3. Power plans may differ between systems. Some manufacturers will create their own custom modes and remove others.

If your laptop needs a boost during the day, switching to Windows 11 power mode and enabling extra battery performance can be the nudge it needs. Your laptop will run faster so you can get things done, but watch your battery life, as your battery will drain quicker.

Windows 11 includes other features you might be interested in, including the ability to install Android apps. You might also want to look at installing Windows Subsystem for Linux on Windows 11 to run Linux apps on your Windows PC.