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Enable the Intersil Prism 2.5 Reference Drivers PowerSave Mode in the registry

CESD|200158

Applies To

  • Windows CE 2.0, SP1
  • Handheld PC Professional, SP1
  • Handheld PC 2000
  • Windows CE 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 .net

Overview

This article discusses how to manually toggle between normal power management and advanced power management when using Intersil Prism 2.5 based chipsets and Intersil reference drivers.

More Info

The Prism 2.5 reference driver specification outlines a binary value power management mode allowing the driver to selectively switch between standard power management (normal mode) or advanced power management (PowerSave mode). In the PowerSave mode the transceiver sensitivity is reduced as part of a routine designed to extend the battery longevity of the H/PC device, at the expense of signal range and card throughput.

While the driver settings are set through the registry, under H/PC Pro and HPC2000 reference drivers the setting is an established option in the configuration application. The feature is particularly useful if you are a Windows CE Net users who wishes to force the card to use PowerSave mode.

WARNING: If you use a Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to hard reset your Handheld PC back to its factory installed configuration. Edit your Windows CE registry at your own risk.
  1. Open your registry editor
  2. Navigate to the PnP Drive linkage instance for your Card. The named instance will relate to the linkage identifier of the driver in the system registry and cannot be consistently predicted in advanced. Generally speaking for the Prism reference driver the name of the key will be PRISM followed by a numeric value indicating the instance of the driver PRISM1 being the first, PRISM2 being the second.
  3. HKLM\Comm\(Driver Name)(Driver number)
    for example: HKLM\Comm\PRISM1
  4. Create a new DWord value named:
    PSMode
  5. Set the data value as follows:
    1 = Normal
    2 = PowerSave
  6. Eject the PCMCIA or CF WiFi adapter
  7. Upon reinsertion the new driver settings will be used

See Also

CESDH0028 - Intersil Prism 2.5 Reference Drivers for Windows CE

Acknowledgements

With thanks to Matrix Core for working with us on this article