So you forgot your charger and are on your way to an important meeting. There's nothing you can do to stop your notebook battery from draining, but you can do a lot to delay its inevitable demise.
If you have a laptop with a very old battery that drains within minutes of a full charge, there's not much you can do to make it last longer, you'll probably need to replace the battery. For everyone else, these tips can help keep your battery working at peak efficiency.
Adjust the power plan
The first thing you should do is make sure you have a reasonable power plan selected for the time you are using battery power. The high-performance plan is always tempting (you are a high-performance user after all), but you will drain your battery very quickly, select the power saving or balanced plans, and make sure it is set to turn off the video quickly. after inactivity, since it is the biggest consumer of energy.
Next, you will use Advanced Power Settings. Make sure “On battery” settings are set to maximize battery life, such as: change plan to turn off hard disk quickly, use power saving mode for your wireless adapter, for processor , and especially for your video card. Processor Power Management allows you to specify whether the notebook will rely on fans (coolers) for cooling or whether it will slow down the processor when the temperature rises, and this can definitely help your battery life, although it does lower the power a bit. performance.
Adjust screen brightness
The display is the biggest drag on battery life as it's the biggest drain on power, and the fastest way to increase battery life is to use your laptop's keyboard to control screen brightness. For most notebooks it is necessary to hold down the function key (Fn) and use the brightness keys, decreasing as much as you can (leaving it still visible) is a good idea. Of all the things you can tweak to improve battery life, this change tops the list of tweaks that can improve battery life.
Make sure your power plan is set to turn the screen off quickly when your notebook is idle, and don't use any animated screensavers as it will overuse your notebook's graphics resources. Many sites claim that disabling the Aero theme extends battery life, and it's true that you can get a little extra time, a few minutes at most, ideally adjusting the screen brightness and using simpler appearance settings.
Optimize your hardware's power consumption
Does your notebook have a Bluetooth adapter that you are not using? And what about WiFi? Each of these devices consumes power only when turned on, and if you're not using them, you can turn them off to save some battery life. If you are using your laptop on the plane, subway or somewhere without a wireless access point, use the keyboard shortcut to disable the WiFi adapter if available or simply disable it manually in the control panel.
Try to avoid using a card adapter as it can drain your battery quickly, and make sure your USB devices are set to allow Windows to turn them off to save power, you can find the settings in the properties window in device manager.
You will also be able to verify that your laptop computer has the required amount of RAM memory. If Windows crashes constantly, it's because your notebook doesn't have enough RAM to keep everything in memory. You should consider increasing your RAM or running fewer apps at the same time.
Disable Background Processes and Services
Background processes can do more than just slow down your PC's performance, they can also drain your battery life. Always make sure you close all background apps you don't need while using battery power, and turn off all automatic updates, scheduled tasks, and especially search indexing.
The main programs to disable are Windows Desktop gadgets, and all those applications that hide in the system tray, next to the clock. It's time to do some cleaning, so disable or uninstall any apps running in the system tray that you really don't need. (Only uninstall if you're using your notebook connected to a power source - don't waste battery time doing this.) It's not just good for battery life, it's also good practice in general.
Hibernate your notebook whenever possible
Hibernating your computer instead of suspending allows your notebook to use no power, so if you won't be using your laptop for an hour or more, put it in hibernation mode.
One of the other benefits of using sleep mode that many people don't consider is that there are a number of ways your laptop can be accidentally woken up, for example a scheduled task from a program that wakes your laptop from sleep to make backups. or a device that triggers the notebook to wake up. If you are using sleep mode, nothing other than the power button can wake up the notebook.
Take care of your battery by avoiding heat
Laptop batteries will always slowly lose their charge capacity over time, but when a laptop is constantly overheated or used in a very hot environment, the battery will die quickly.
Today's notebooks use lithium batteries instead of nickel, but there is a lot of misinformation out there about how to charge or discharge your batteries, so let's understand better: nickel batteries need to be fully discharged before a recharge to optimize battery life, but lithium batteries are the opposite, you don't need to completely discharge it before recharging and, in fact, if you completely drain a lithium battery and don't recharge it for some time, it can make it unable to hold a load.
You also need to make sure your battery isn't always fully charged - the wikipedia shows that if your lithium battery is fully charged all the time, you will lose up to 20% of its capacity each year, no matter what you do. Be sure to discharge the battery as often as possible, and if you spend most of your time plugged in at a desk, it would be best to discharge the battery halfway, then simply remove the battery and store it in a cool place. You can use sleep mode to continue exactly what you were doing while still completely shutting down your notebook.
How long does your notebook battery last? Did you ever get any improvement by tweaking the settings? Share your experiences with your fellow readers in the comments.
