How to Improve Battery Life on a Laptop

A common problem with laptops is the battery life. Laptops can die out only three to four hours into the battery life, much too short for any work to be done. If you're playing a movie, the battery life decreases down to a level where the movie can't even be played from start to finish. If you think it's impossible to extend your battery for just another 30 minutes, these tips will change your mind.

Lower the brightness level - Most people don't need a glaring screen in order to read a few documents or watch a movie. Humans can function perfectly fine if light levels are turned down a bit; it simply requires some mental adjustment. Access your appearance options and turn down the brightness level. This will lower the stress that is placed on the battery and give you more time.

Stick with the necessities - Chances are if you need to improve battery life, you probably have some work to do. To get this done, whatever it is, iTunes doesn't need to be open. AIM, MSN, and Yahoo don't need to be all on at the same time. Close down all unused processes by checking out your process list. Your laptop won't need to spend extra energy trying to manage these processes along with your active work.

Defrag - Defragmentation moves files around on your hard drive so that your laptop can access them faster. This is helpful in extending your battery life simply because the machine doesn't need to search the entire hard drive for one small file when it could be placed with similar files. With less effort spent finding a file, your laptop will be a bit more efficient.

Discharge - Unless your laptop has a lithium ion battery (ignore this tip if it does), run out your entire battery so it doesn't carry the memory effect, which makes the laptop think that the battery is sapped when it still has 20% left. Don't underestimate this; my older laptops lasted 30 minutes because of the battery effect.

If you continue with these tips every time your laptop is used, you might find that your laptop runs for five or six hours instead of two to three. Remember, improving battery life is all about being efficient with the power it has. If you lower the stress that you don't mean to give, you can use your laptop for a longer period of time.