Disabling devices to conserve laptop battery power?

[jrichrds]

I just got an internal WiFi card from a friend, and as it wasn't made for my laptop, the on/off switch on my laptop doesn't work (the WiFi is always on regardless of switch position). Does disabling the device in control panel/system/hardware/device manager have the same effect, or will the card still be drawing power?

If there's no way of powering off the device through software, then I'd probably just go back to my WiFi PC Card.

 

[jschuk]

I am pretty sure you can disable the device. To save trouble of going through all those menus, all you need to do is have an icon in the taskbar and then just right click on it and select disable/enable. I have the IR disabled on my laptop in the thought that it saves power. I guess to be sure you would need to run a battery life test.