What is dynamic power step?

[WillMak]

Battery Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 5
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 1
Dynamic Power Step: No
Reduce Processor Speed: Yes
Automatic Restart On Power Loss: No
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Wake On Modem Ring: No
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
ReduceBrightness: 1

I saw this on my ibook battery in system profiler. Neevr heard of it before but it's on off.

 

[tag]

Refers to processor speed adjustment in regards to energy efficiency

I found this on the Apple website.

Power Stepping
To conserve power when operating on battery power, the iBook computer supports two methods of power stepping to slow down the processor clock. One method is an inherent feature of the PowerPC G3 chip, called Dynamic Power Stepping (DPS) and cannot be adjusted by the user. DPS is controlled automatically by the system, stepping up the processor speed for performance-intensive applications and stepping down the processor speed for energy-efficient applications.

Under Mac OS X, users can manually step down the processor by adjusting the Energy Saving Settings, which are located under the Energy Saver panel of System Preferences. Users can select from preconfigured profiles including Automatic, Highest Performance, Longest Battery Life, DVD Playback, and Presentations, or customize their own energy settings. Highest Performance and Longest Battery Life profiles override the DPS feature. Highest Performance maintains the highest processor speed while Longest Battery Life caps the processor speed at 400MHz.

From - http://developer.apple.com/document...ple_ref/doc/uid/TP40000871-TP3000330-BCIHHIDF