15 WAYS TO EXTEND LAPTOP BATTERY LIFE
Laptops tend to lose their
charm quickly when you’re
constantly looking for the
nearest power outlet to
charge up. How do you keep
your battery going for as long as possible? Here are 15
easy ways to do so. 1. Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its
work – less demand you are
going to put on the hard drive
and your battery. Make your
hard drive as efficient as
possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s
on battery of course!) Mac OSX
is better built to handle
fragmentation so it may not
be very applicable for Apple
systems. 2. Dim your screen – Most laptops come with the ability
to dim your laptop screen.
Some even come with ways
to modify CPU and cooling
performance. Cut them down
to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some
extra battery juice. 3. Cut down on programs
running in the
background . Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these
add to the CPU load and cut
down battery life. Shut
down everything that isn’t
crucial when you’re on
battery. 4. Cut down external
devices – USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi
drain down your laptop
battery. Remove or shut
them down when not in use.
It goes without saying that
charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop
when on battery is a surefire
way of quickly wiping out
the charge on your laptop
battery. 5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more
with the memory your laptop
has, rather than relying on
virtual memory. Virtual
memory results in hard drive
use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding
more RAM will consume more
energy, so this is most
applicable if you do need to
run memory intensive
programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual
memory. 6. Run off a hard drive
rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard
drives are, CD and DVD drives
are worse. Even having one
in the drive can be power
consuming. They spin, taking
power, even when they?re not actively being used.
Wherever possible, try to run
on virtual drives using
programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones. 7. Keep the battery
contacts clean: Clean your battery’s metal contacts
every couple of months with
a cloth moistened with
rubbing alcohol. This keeps
the transfer of power from
your battery more efficient. 8. Take care of your
battery – Exercise the Battery. Do not leave a
charged battery dormant for
long periods of time. Once
charged, you should at least
use the battery at least once
every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On
battery completely discharge.
(Discharing is only for older
batteries with memory
effects) 9. Hibernate not standby – Although placing a laptop in
standby mode saves some
power and you can instantly
resume where you left off, it
doesn’t save anywhere as
much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a
PC will actually save your PC’s
state as it is, and completely
shut itself down. 10. Keep operating
temperature down - Your laptop operates more
efficiently when it’s cooler.
Clean out your air vents with
a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or
refer to some extra tips by LapTopMag.com. 11. Set up and optimize
your power options – Go to ‘Power Options’ in your
windows control panel and
set it up so that power usage
is optimized (Select the ‘max
battery’ for maximum effect). 12. Don’t multitask – Do one thing at a time when
you’re on battery. Rather
than working on a
spreadsheet, letting your
email client run in the
background and listening to your latest set of MP3′s, set
your mind to one thing only.
If you don’t you’ll only drain
out your batteries before
anything gets completed! 13. Go easy on the PC
demands – The more you demand from your PC.
Passive activities like email
and word processing consume
much less power than gaming
or playing a DVD. If you’ve
got a single battery charge – pick your priorities wisely. 14. Get yourself a more
efficient laptop - Laptops are getting more and more
efficient in nature to the point
where some manufacturers
are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to
replace an aging one is usually
a quick fix. 15. Prevent the Memory
Effect - If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want
to prevent the ‘memory
effect’ – Keep the battery
healthy by fully charging and
then fully discharging it at
least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule
are Li-Ion batteries (which
most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect. Bonus Tip #1: Turn off the
autosave function . MS- Word’s and Excel’s autosave
functions are great but
because they keep saving
regular intervals, they work
your hard driver harder than
it may have to. If you plan to do this, you may want to
turn it back on as the battery
runs low. While it saves
battery life in the beginning,
you will want to make sure
your work is saved when your battery dies. Bonus Tip #2: Lower the graphics use. You can do this
by changing the screen
resolution and shutting off
fancy graphic drivers. Graphics
cards (video cards) use as
much or more power today as hard disks – Thanks Andrew Update 7/7/07: Bonus Tip #1
to give caution about turning
off autosave, tip #8 to change
information about discharging
batteries – thanks to all who
pointed it out. Added Bonus tip #2, Tip #1 to add in clause
in regards to Mac OSX, Tip #1
about the spinning of hard
drives – thanks to all who
pointed it out
charm quickly when you’re
constantly looking for the
nearest power outlet to
charge up. How do you keep
your battery going for as long as possible? Here are 15
easy ways to do so. 1. Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its
work – less demand you are
going to put on the hard drive
and your battery. Make your
hard drive as efficient as
possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s
on battery of course!) Mac OSX
is better built to handle
fragmentation so it may not
be very applicable for Apple
systems. 2. Dim your screen – Most laptops come with the ability
to dim your laptop screen.
Some even come with ways
to modify CPU and cooling
performance. Cut them down
to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some
extra battery juice. 3. Cut down on programs
running in the
background . Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these
add to the CPU load and cut
down battery life. Shut
down everything that isn’t
crucial when you’re on
battery. 4. Cut down external
devices – USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi
drain down your laptop
battery. Remove or shut
them down when not in use.
It goes without saying that
charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop
when on battery is a surefire
way of quickly wiping out
the charge on your laptop
battery. 5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more
with the memory your laptop
has, rather than relying on
virtual memory. Virtual
memory results in hard drive
use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding
more RAM will consume more
energy, so this is most
applicable if you do need to
run memory intensive
programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual
memory. 6. Run off a hard drive
rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard
drives are, CD and DVD drives
are worse. Even having one
in the drive can be power
consuming. They spin, taking
power, even when they?re not actively being used.
Wherever possible, try to run
on virtual drives using
programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones. 7. Keep the battery
contacts clean: Clean your battery’s metal contacts
every couple of months with
a cloth moistened with
rubbing alcohol. This keeps
the transfer of power from
your battery more efficient. 8. Take care of your
battery – Exercise the Battery. Do not leave a
charged battery dormant for
long periods of time. Once
charged, you should at least
use the battery at least once
every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On
battery completely discharge.
(Discharing is only for older
batteries with memory
effects) 9. Hibernate not standby – Although placing a laptop in
standby mode saves some
power and you can instantly
resume where you left off, it
doesn’t save anywhere as
much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a
PC will actually save your PC’s
state as it is, and completely
shut itself down. 10. Keep operating
temperature down - Your laptop operates more
efficiently when it’s cooler.
Clean out your air vents with
a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or
refer to some extra tips by LapTopMag.com. 11. Set up and optimize
your power options – Go to ‘Power Options’ in your
windows control panel and
set it up so that power usage
is optimized (Select the ‘max
battery’ for maximum effect). 12. Don’t multitask – Do one thing at a time when
you’re on battery. Rather
than working on a
spreadsheet, letting your
email client run in the
background and listening to your latest set of MP3′s, set
your mind to one thing only.
If you don’t you’ll only drain
out your batteries before
anything gets completed! 13. Go easy on the PC
demands – The more you demand from your PC.
Passive activities like email
and word processing consume
much less power than gaming
or playing a DVD. If you’ve
got a single battery charge – pick your priorities wisely. 14. Get yourself a more
efficient laptop - Laptops are getting more and more
efficient in nature to the point
where some manufacturers
are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to
replace an aging one is usually
a quick fix. 15. Prevent the Memory
Effect - If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want
to prevent the ‘memory
effect’ – Keep the battery
healthy by fully charging and
then fully discharging it at
least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule
are Li-Ion batteries (which
most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect. Bonus Tip #1: Turn off the
autosave function . MS- Word’s and Excel’s autosave
functions are great but
because they keep saving
regular intervals, they work
your hard driver harder than
it may have to. If you plan to do this, you may want to
turn it back on as the battery
runs low. While it saves
battery life in the beginning,
you will want to make sure
your work is saved when your battery dies. Bonus Tip #2: Lower the graphics use. You can do this
by changing the screen
resolution and shutting off
fancy graphic drivers. Graphics
cards (video cards) use as
much or more power today as hard disks – Thanks Andrew Update 7/7/07: Bonus Tip #1
to give caution about turning
off autosave, tip #8 to change
information about discharging
batteries – thanks to all who
pointed it out. Added Bonus tip #2, Tip #1 to add in clause
in regards to Mac OSX, Tip #1
about the spinning of hard
drives – thanks to all who
pointed it out
wow!!!! tanx this is real good .....thumbs up dude
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