Power management config txt files

[KDEnewbie]

I wonder if anyone could suggest a way of selecting a less power hungry/heat building adjustment via editing one of the many text based config files.

I notice that my laptop fan is running pretty much all of the time whereas previously with Win 7 it hardly ever came on at all, it would only stay on for extended periods when doing something demanding like rendering video or other video transcoding tasks.

I have only used Linux on desktop pc's until very recently, so notice how much more power hungry Linux seems on a laptop (or to be more precise, on my specific Samsung model which has only recently been fully supported by the latest kernel), or maybe it's because I have installed the Raring beta 2, not sure, but I am sure there are settings to be found in config files that can do a lot more than the KDE gui power management tools which only allow for screen dimming, sleep, hibernate modes etc. I just need to be pointed there and advised about how to make some changes if possible.

Any help greatly appreciated

[Teunis]

I would start by finding out WHAT is using all this power.

The easy but not precise way press Ctrl + Esc and see what comes up.
The same but including pretty graphics is KSysGuard (under System).

Almost as easy, install powertop, run it (as sudo) and watch what comes up.
The last one is also looking at devices, the hardware, the first one at processes, the software.

[KDEnewbie]

thanks for your suggestions Teunis, I will check it out tomorrow as I'm calling it a day for now and will power up the laptop then to investigate