1. Get rid of bloatware:
First and foremost, get rid of all the useless software that comes bundled with
laptops. You really don’t need all those monitors, recovery solutions and such,
there are far better, lighter and free data recovery alternatives available. All
of these programs running in the background not only slow down your computer,
but also use up precious processing power which in turn depletes the battery.
Even make sure that there are only essential items in startup, you don’t need
iTunes Helper, Adobe Updater and stuff to startup with your PC.
2. Tone down the screen brightness: Probably the
easiest and most obvious way to increase laptop battery backup is to reduce
screen brightness. The same applies to any mobile device, in fact. Turn down the
brightness to a comfortable, usable level and of course don’t make it bright
enough to light up a whole room.
3. Unplug external devices and empty disc drives:
External devices like a USB external HDD, an iPod or mouse use power from the
laptop to run. Therefore, unplug them so that all the battery power is used
just for your laptop. If you want to watch a movie from removable media, copy
it to your HDD and unplug the external device. Not only is it faster, that’s
one less device using up previous battery power. Similarly, if you’re not using
the optical disc drive, remove any discs from it because even if it’s not being
read from or written on, the disc drive keeps spinning and using power.
4. Avoid multimedia content and using speakers:
Gaming or watching high def movies on battery power is not a good idea, it eats
up battery really fast. The graphics card works overtime and requires more
power to render graphics or frames in a movie, specially high definition ones.
As much as possible, mute the sounds as well or use earphones/headphones while
watching a movie.
5. Turn off connectivity services: When you’re not
surfing the internet through Wi-Fi or transferring data through Bluetooth, turn
them off to save battery power. Turning them on or off is just a key press away
on modern laptops and shouldn’t be too cumbersome. Both these services require
considerable power.
6. Tweak power options: Laptops have multiple power
options and some even come with company optimized ones. Try using the power
saver option when you want to extend battery life, and change the time before
the laptop switches off display and hard disks or goes to sleep. About 15
minutes or so will do just fine. Although, keep in mind that if you select to
turn off the hard drives after a certain time, ongoing operations might be
interrupted. So if you’re doing something important involving constant use of
the hard drives on battery power, make sure to move the mouse once in a while.
7. Hibernate, not Sleep: If you’re looking to
resume work after a break, make sure to put the laptop to Hibernate and not
Sleep. Sleep mode simply turns off drives and display but memory and such keeps
running. Thus, battery is still being consumed. Hibernate on the other hand,
saves the current state and turns off components, thus power is conserved.
8. Update drivers: Although it’s not considered a
direct connection, most newer drivers help devices perform more efficiently and
thus consume less power. Furthermore, they can even offload processing tasks to
specific components and not stress the CPU.
So that was how to increase laptop battery backup
in 8 easy ways. Individually they might not make much of a difference, but if
applied together, it can considerably increase battery backup and life. A
common misconception is that laptop batteries have to be completely charged and
discharged to ensure a long life. This is not true, modern lithium ion
batteries are not affected by partial charges and discharges, although older
nickel metal hydride batteries used to be.
Do let us know if there’s anything
else you do to save battery and as always, comments and suggestions are welcome!
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