Don’t Lose Work Hours, Four Ridiculously Easy Ways To Instantly Boost Laptop Battery Life

The laptop has allowed us to be accessed anywhere, providing we’ve got the battery that is _{(image source Ed Yourdon on Flickr)}Who hasn’t been working away at something furiously when their laptop battery has died. Just before they do their first save?

Or who has been waiting to get that all important letter fro their client/boss/partner/bookie when the laptop battery gives up the ghost, miles from any form of electricity that could revive it?

We would all love to be able to have a laptop that happily runs on battery power for hours on end. With today’s modern fast-paced lifestyle laptop batteries can save us a lot of hassle.

They make it possible for us to continuously be on the move and not to be tied to one particular location just because it has a power source for a computer.

Well, here are a few steps to help get longer use out of your battery.

They are:

• Limiting the workload you put on your laptop
• Recharging your batter correctly the first few times
• Regulating the temperature of the battery
• Taking back up measures

So what exactly do I mean by each of these points?

Limiting The Laptop Battery Workload

 

The first stage of getting your laptop battery to last a longer time is to make sure you’re not using any more than you should be.

There are a number of tasks and applications that you can kill to limit the workload you put the battery through and extend the length of time needed between charges.

 

Items like this WiFi and Bluetooth USB Adapter and Maximum range wireless WiFi USB dongle are great for keeping you connected but will draw from your battery. Unplug them when they’re not in use.

 

To start with, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth consume a lot of energy; if not in use you should turn then off. Most laptops have shortcut keys to instantly disable wireless, Bluetooth and other settings.

Something else that’s sure to drain your laptop battery faster than Dracula on a bender is playing multimedia files, like movies, videos, games or songs.

So when you’re traveling with your computer and there’s no easily available recharge points try and avoid playing computer games, music or DVD movies.

Dimming amount of light the display of the laptop screen uses also saves battery power. You should adjust it to a level that reduces the power usage while still allowing you to view it comfortably.

We all leave our laptop powered on and go about our daily lives, it’s a crime that all laptop users have been guilty of. One minute you’re chatting on MSN or Gtalk, then the phone rings and you go off and do one of 15 chores that just need to be done and you forget all about the computer.

Power Saving Settings On Windows Laptops

 

Wondering where to find all those fantastic settings that let you save battery life? Wonder no more!

The first thing to do is to get into the power setting panel this can be found in the control panel. How do I get to that you might ask… simply go to the start button, go to the option marked settings than select control panel in the next pull-down menu.

Once there click on the Power Options Icon (It won’t be too hard to spot it’s usually the one with the battery and the plug)

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To reduce the time the computer waits to turn itself off, put the system onto standby, or turn the screen off go into the power settings option by clicking on the tab. You can select the laptop option or just set the timer to any time you wish using the pull down boxes.

If you’ve not taken up too much space on your hard drive then you should be able to switch on the hibernate function as well. this will help further conserve your laptop battery resources.

Once you’ve made your changes don’t forget to click on apply and OK

 

If you have programs that are running from a DVD or CD you can stop them chewing up so much energy by copying them to your harddrive and running them directly from your laptop.

Any output from the laptop will decrease the battery life. While it’s a pain the simple solution to extending laptop battery life is to turn off all scheduled tasks, lower the speaker volume and try not to use the DVD/CD player, unless you need to. although you should keep in mind, some programs you run from a DVD or CD can be copied on to your desktop and run straight from the laptop, this helps with saving battery power

This should be enough to give you some serious hours but if you want your laptop to become something of a camel then read on.

Recharging your batter correctly the first few times

 

If you’ve just bought your laptop battery then how you recharge it and use it the first couple of times could be crucial.

While we have already talked about ways to extend battery life for Ni-Cad batteries it bares repeating for laptops for which battery life plays such a big part.

Regulating the temperature of the battery

 

Never leave your battery in the laptop, if you are not going to be using it for a week or more, if you’re going away on holiday, or you’re simply not going to be using your laptop for sometime, take the battery out.

Temperature plays a key part here. This we cannot always control, but can improvise and try, such as storing batteries in cool, (NOT COLD) and dry conditions, to much heat will drain the battery faster, and to much cold will prevent the battery from giving much power.

A laptop cooling fan will keep things cool without icing your computer over and aren’t always as bulky as you’d think.

 

Not all laptop fans are big and bulky, some are small enough to almost fit into your side pocket.

 

Don’t forget the number one rule, if you always use the laptop while it is plugged into a power supply, take out the battery, unless you plan to unplug and move around with your laptop. When using your laptop on battery power, let it get very low before plugging in the main power supply.

Don’t make my mistake of leaving a battery in a laptop while using an electrical outlet for long periods of time.

This will keep the battery in a constant state of recharge, which will reduce the life cycle of your battery to the point were you will get no more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time.

Taking Back Up Measures

 

And as a last resort… it’s always a good idea to have a couple of tricks up your sleave when you’re on the road should your laptop battery fail to go the distance.

 

One good green gadget option that has recently hit the market is the solar battery charger which won’t only charge your battery this time but next time as well, provided they’re left in the sun for long enough.

 

There’s always the option of bringing along a spare battery or two, or a solar battery charger to keep the laptop battery topped up.

And hopefully no to far into the future, we’ll have laptop batteries that can go on for days, no matter what settings your laptop uses.

Check out some of the life extension tools available at Chinavasion and take some of these steps and you’ll find yourself able to spend longer periods on the go with your laptop.