NoSweats: Instructions
Please note that NoSweats comes as a stand-alone executable. It has no fancy buttons or pictures, just a very basic status dialog and a notification icon. This is a deliberate design choice, keeping it very light-weight and allowing it to run extremely stable using very little CPU and only 1.5 megabytes of RAM. This is very little given that most computers nowadays come with 4-6 gigabytes of RAM.
Downloading and install NoSweats
Download NoSweats.zip from the Download page and unzip it to a sensible place, like c:\tools\NoSweats. NoSweats does not come with an installer. just the executabe. Creating a shortcut to it on the desktop is recommended. This might also come in handy later, should you want to do some fine-tuning. If you would like NoSweats to start up automatically when you log in to Windows, check the F.A.Q. for more information.
Important: adjusting the windows power plans
Please do not skip this part and read it carefully, as it is an essential part of setting up NoSweats. Failing to set up the power plans properly before using NoSweats can result in what may seem as unexpected behavior by Windows.
All numbers given in these instructions are for the gamer/miner example, but should be fine for your average PC as well. Althought the default settings will work fine on most machines, you may find NoSweats responds too fast or slow on your machine. To solve this NoSweats can be fine-tuned. Please look further down this page for more information.
Note: These instructions are written for Windows 10, but should be nearly the same for older versions. NoSweats has worked fine ever since Windows Vista.
Search for power and click on choose a power plan. Alternatively go via the control panel go to 'hardware and sound, Power Options, edit plan settings'.
Some plans may be hidden, click on the 'hide additional plans button to make them appear.'
Click on Change plan settings for the relevant plan
select Change advanced power settings.
Then adjust the Processor power management settings as follows:
(The actual response to these settings will vary depending on the way you have set up the over-clocking settings of the computer. These numbers are based on the example PC)
-Power saver
Minimum processor state is set to 5%
Maximum processor state is set to 80% (Setting it lower than 80% is not recommended)
When Windows is idle, the CPU can run at a speed as low as 1Ghz. Imagine the amount of energy this saves! Obviously to get this low all non-necessary programs will have to be closed.
Now that we have the dialog open, we can select the next power plan.
-Balanced
Minimum processor state is set to 85%
Maximum processor state is set to 99%
-High performance
Minimum processor state is set to 90-100%
Maximum processor state is set to 100%
The percentages explained
The difference between setting the Maximum processor state at 99% or 100% is as follows: set at 100% Windows will allow the CPU to run at he maximum over-clocked speed (4.2Ghz in this case), while at 99% Windows will allow it to go up to the stock speed (3.2Ghz).
A minimum processor state of 90% is usually enough for most games and allows the processor to go a bit slower when it's not really needed to remain at full speed. However 100% will be required for high performance games.
Going much lower than 85% will really slow down the computer, making it practically unusable. This is why very low settings should only be used in the Power saver plan. Warning: be careful using very low percentages for maximum processor state, as your computer needs the cpu to operate, even when idle, for instance to control the mouse and keyboard.
Should something go wrong you can always reset the individual power plans with the Restore power plans button in the power options dialog.
Obviously you can tweak all options for each individual plan to your own liking, these are just examples.
Please keep in mind that other power plan settings, like Turn off the display after, put the computer to sleep etc. will also follow the automatically selected power plans. I would advise you to review all important settings in all three used power plans. I would also recommend setting the Turn off the display setting to Never in the High performance plan, to avoid the screen from turning off while watching a video stream.
Using NoSweats
Start NoSweats.exe. Should the program throw an error about a missing .dll, please look at the Support page
As soon as NoSweats is started, its information window is hidden. In the notification area you will find a little sweat-drop icon. (If you can't see it, click show hidden hidden icons and drag it to the bar from there. If you see more than one sweat-drop, the program has been started multiple times. Make sure you close all but one.)
By clicking the sweat-drop with the left mouse button the information window is displayed. As you can tell, the window is kept as plain an simple as possible, to save resources.
The window provides you with basic information, like the current CPU load and the load threshold and how many seconds remain before the selected power plan will shift down one level due to the CPU load not reaching the threshold
When the CPU load goes over the threshold its seconds counter is set to 0 and a higher power plan will be selected. The threshold is then lowered, to prevent yoyo-ing between the power plans. When the CPU load remains under its threshold, the seconds counter will increase until it reaches 30. The threshold is then raised slightly. If the CPU load remains under this new threshold for a few seconds, a lower power plan is selected.
When the mouse is moved, its counter is set to 0 and a higher power plan is selected. When it remains still, it is increased until it reaches 3600 (1 hour). After this a lower power plan is selected.
Tip: The thresholds can be adjusted, see the fine-tuning section below.
To summarize: the results of mouse movement and CPU load combined lead to an appropriate power plan being selected.
By right clicking the sweat-drop tray icon, you will be presented this popup menu, which provides you the following:
- Force High Performance - Forces the High performance mode until switched off again, for watching video streams etc.
- Open NoSweats.net - Opens this website in your browser
- Exit NoSweats - Closes NoSweats. When exiting NoSweats the Balanced power plan is automatically selected.
While the High performance plan is forced, system monitoring is disabled, to save CPU cycles. The basic information will therefore not be displayed.
Fine-tuning (optional)
The default settings work fine on the machine used in the example, but may need some fine-tuning for other computers. If you think it's responding too slow, keep the dialog open and see what CPU load is being reached, the thresholds may need adjusting. You can also adjust the delay for the mouse not being used.
These settings can be adjusted by passing them as command line arguments. This has to be done in the exact way as described, otherwise NoSweats may do unpredictable things. No errors are handled, so please pay attention while adjusting these settings. Invalid values will either be ignored or set as 0.
The settings are set as whole numbers, starting with, separated by and ended with a ; (semicolon) From left to right the settings are:
;mouse delay;CPU load threshold;CPU load to idle transition threshold; CPU idle threshold; CPU idle delay;
mouse delay: the amount of seconds which have to pass before the mouse is considered not being in use.
CPU load threshold: the load percentage the CPU has to reach before it is considered active and a higher power plan is selected.
CPU load to idle transition threshold: the temporary load percentage the CPU has to remain under for a few seconds while anticipating a lower power plan selection. This value should be set somewhere in between the CPU idle and CPU working thresholds.
CPU idle threshold: the load percentage which the CPU load has to be under before changing to a lower power plan.
CPU idle delay: the amount of seconds which have to pass before the processor is considered idle.
For the default settings the arguments are:
NoSweats.exe ;3600;20;15;10;30;
These arguments can be added by making a shortcut to NoSweats.exe, and adding them to the target field
I would love to hear from you if you find suitable settings for your setup, I will publish them on this site.
