Ten Tips to Increase Your Laptop's Battery Life

Laptop batteries have came a long way in providing power on the go but still are not powerful enough to last as long as we would like. Here are ten tips that you can use to increase the length of a battery charge and improve your mobile computing experience.

Increase Laptop Battery Life Tip #1

Remove discs from the optical (and floppy) drives. When you leave discs in your drives the laptop will occasionally access them, utilizing power to spin the drive motors. Removing the discs prevents this occasional spin-up, saving power that can be better used elsewhere.

Increase Laptop Battery Life Tip #2

Use the hard drive as little as possible. Hard drives use motors just like optical drives do; the more you access your hard drive, the higher your power consumption and the lower your battery life.

Increase Laptop Battery Life Tip #3

Use Flash media to store your files and applications. Flash media like flash (pen) drives and SD-type cards use significantly less power than hard drives, optical discs or floppy drives. Lupo Pen Suite is a set of applications that you can install on a flash drive to access such programs as internet browsers, media players, productivity software, games and more. Using this or another flash media application will allow you to be productive while reducing hard drive usage to a minimum. If you store your music or other files on this media, you will be able to listen to music and continue your work while enabling your laptop to sip on that battery instead of chug down the power within.

Increase Laptop Battery Life Tip #4

Turn down your monitor brightness. The brighter you set your laptop monitor, the more power the laptop will use to operate the back-light. Laptops have either a hot key combination or, in some cases, an actual switch that will enable you to increase or reduce the the monitor brightness.

Increase Laptop Battery Life Tip #5

Adjust the power settings for maximum battery life. Microsoft Windows has several power settings that will maximize the battery life of your laptop. By entering into the power options of your system, you can configure Windows to take steps to conserve the battery.

Increase Laptop Battery Life Tip #6

Turn off any programs you aren't using. This includes background programs like instant messaging programs, downloading programs, printer monitors and scheduled tasks. Check your system tray for running programs and turn off any you find you do not absolutely need to have running.

Increase Laptop Battery Life Tip #7

If you aren't using it, disconnect it. Peripherals like the MagicJack, printers, USB hubs, card readers, external hard drives and flash media use power whenever they are connected, even if you are not actively using the device. If you are not using the device turn it off and disconnect it from your laptop to avoid unnecessary power drains.

Increase Laptop Battery Life Tip #8

Turn off the Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi cards are actually a type of radio transmission and receiving device, and use power to secure and maintain Wi-Fi connections on your laptop, even if you aren't online. They use even more power to send and receive signals when you are actively surfing the Internet. If you can do your work offline, turn the Wi-Fi off on your laptop by pressing the hot-key connection, flipping the switch, or disconnecting the device from your computer.

Increase Laptop Battery Life Tip #9

Turn off the sound. When your laptop makes sounds, it is powering up not only the sound card in your computer but the speakers as well. Imagine that every sound from your laptop's speakers is a drink from your battery's cup. Turning off the sound by hitting the mute button will therefore reduce your power usage and increase the length of time your battery's charge will last.

Increase Laptop Battery Life Tip #10

If you are walking away from your computer, place it on standby or hibernate. Don't waste your laptop's precious power when you are not actively using the computer. If you are stepping away from your laptop for a few moments place the computer on standby. This will preserve your location and allow you to resume where you left off quickly, but uses a small amount of power to maintain this state.

If you are walking away from your computer for a longer stretch of an hour or more, consider placing your laptop in hibernation instead. Hibernation saves the computer state in a file on your hard drive to enable you to get back to work faster than if you shut the system down, but slower than if your laptop were on standby. The benefit of hibernation is that it uses no power whatsoever while in this state, but it does access the hard drive while entering and leaving hibernation, so is only recommended for longer stays away from the computer.

Using some or all of these tips will enable you to improve your mobile computing experience by allowing you to go unplugged for a longer period of time. If you find that you still need additional power, you may want to consider investing in a second battery for your laptop. Extended capacity batteries are available now that can vastly increase the time you can go between charges, and are recommended if you want the longest battery life possible.

References:

"Upgrading and Repairing Laptops, Second Edition;" Scott Mueller, 2006.

"Upgrading and Repairing PC's, 15th Edition;" Scott Mueller; 2004.

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