Ixamyakxim: Okay I'll bite - all these "power saving" settings nightmares have me paranoid.
I'm on a Win 7 64 bit desktop. I've (most likely, I think?) NEVER looked at my "power savings" settings. Is there a possibility I've been throttling back my hardware without ever knowing it?
I consider myself computer somewhat savvy - where would I look to check this? What should I be aware of in my power savings settings? Do I have to jump into my BIOS to alter this?
In other words - can I get a few cheap performance bumps with a mouse click or two, due to my own stupidity thus far? Please? In this case I'd much rather be ignorant than that much closer to needing a hardware upgrade LOL!
If you never touched anything after installing the OS and it´s a desktop then, it´s probably set with the standard option to take a balanced approach to your hardware, it would throttle up or down as required.
To see what is yours set to you should go to the control panel, then power options, where you can choose balanced, high performance or power saving.
If you have a wifi adapter you should check also its options, since they are usually set with power saving behaviour.
Apart from the OS you could check also your motherboard bios, since power saving technologies vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and you usually turn them on or off in there. When in doubt, read the motherboard manual.