Make Your Laptop Battery Last Longer
Submitted by CMIT Solutions on Tuesday, January 27, 2009
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Pretty much everyone who owns a PC laptop has, at some point or another, found themselves with a computer that's nearly out of battery power and no electrical outlets in sight. (Usually this happens right before a road trip with three kids in the back of the car screaming for their Dora the Explorer DVD, or the moment you board a plane with six hours' worth of business presentations to review.) If you want to prevent these sorts of calamities from happening in the future, you can take a few simple steps to reduce your PC's power consumption and increase the number of hours you can get out of a fully charged battery.
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Dim your screen. One of the easiest and most effective things you can do is dim your screen. Computer screens use up a surprising amount of power when they're at maximum brightness, so keeping your screen as dim as you can tolerate will keep your battery from running out too quickly.
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Minimize moving parts. Whirring fans and spinning disk drives can quickly deplete your battery, so keep your computer cool and don't run DVDs or CDs.
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Turn off autosave. You should, of course, periodically save whatever you're working on, but autosave eats up more power than you want to use if you're running on a battery.
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Don't multitask. Keep the number of programs and processes you're running to a minimum. Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel, and Outlook tend to use a lot less power than graphics- and processing-intensive programs like the Adobe suite, video games, and music.
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Don't use external devices. Any USB-connected device, even if it's shut off, can still drain battery power, so avoid using mice or flash drives.
In addition, laptops running Windows XP and Vista will have a "Power Options" setting in the control panel that lets you adjust your machine's power consumption.
These tips should help you get the most life you can out of a fully charged laptop battery. To keep your battery in good condition, many experts also recommend running the battery until it's nearly empty and then fully recharging.
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