People often wonder what they can do to reduce the power consumption & heat produced by their laptops.
There are many articles written on it, all babbling & rumbling about methods that dont exactly work.
The actual way to achieve that objective is to disable some logical CPU cores of your unit.
But whats the safe procedure to do so?
Click onAdvanced system options& selectEnvironment Variablesfrom theAdvancedtab.
Now, from theSystem variablessection, selectNUMBERS_OF_PROCESSORSand hitEdit.
Then set the number of logical cores you want to keep active on your setup and clickOK.
Theres another alternate method thatll give the same results.
Below, I will thoroughly discuss both methods, along with how to disable CPU cores on Linux.
Personally, I prefer the second one.
Now reboot your system and the logical core counts will be limited to your set value.
The Grub menu is responsible for launching the Linux OS.
You should find it when starting up your PC.
go for the entry you want to use and pressEto open a menu.
Youll see the following lines or something similar depending on the version.
Now, use the arrow key to go to the entry that begins with the wordkerneland pressEagain.
These parameters are sent directly to the core when the Linux is booting up.
What Are the Benefits of Disabling CPU Cores?
There are many benefits of disabling the processor count in a system.
Its an effective method to fix overheating issues as well.
Additionally, certain applications arent compatible with multi-core processing.
Its also used to test whether a core is functioning properly during heavy loads by isolating other cores.
So, disabling the core counts of a system is a definitive method for the above-mentioned benefits.
Apart from all the perks, shutting down too many logical cores may hurt performance.
It does, actually.
Because you need acertain amount of coreson your CPU to have a seamless user experience.
Though, theres a distinct difference betweenphysical and logical CPU cores.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I disable Intel CPU cores?
PressWin+R, typemsconfigand hitEnter.
Now go to theBoottab and selectAdvanced options.
This will shut down the rest of the cores.
Does disabling cores save power?
Disabling a few cores will reduce the power consumption by the processor and hence save power.
Can disabling cores improve performance?
In some cases, disabling a few cores can improve performance due to reduced power consumption & heat output.
But in many situations, such as gaming, it might not be the case.
Wrapping Up
Note that these methods wont physically affect the hardware of your gadget.
you’re free to revert back to the default number of cores anytime.
Hopefully, this write-up has allowed you to limit the logical core counts on your PC.
Have a good one!
