How frustrating is it if you left your laptop cord somewhere and cannot travel back to pick it up right now? Hopefully, you have at least 20% or 60 minutes’ worth of power left if you did. Still, even if you don’t, you can extend the life of it for as long as possible. Besides, changing battery settings can help you use less energy at home. This will reduce your utility bill and keep the environment clean.
Use these 7 tips for optimizing your laptop battery:
1. Turn off programs running in the background. Just look at your taskbar. If several icons are appearing, it means that you have programs running in the background. You may not be using them and may even have closed the program. However, you need to completely “quit” or “exit” the program if you want it to stop running.
2. Adjust your screen brightness. Some computers have keys for this on the keyboard. Otherwise, you’ll have to look click (or tap if you have a touch screen) on the battery symbol and then hit “adjust screen brightness.”
3. Change your power consumption settings. Most machines have two different options: Balanced Power or Power Saver. Hit the battery icon on the lower right portion of your screen and select the option that causes you to use the least amount of power. If you want more information, you can hit or click “more power options” or similar link to open up a new dialog. From there, you can make more specific power adjustments, such as to when you want your screensaver to appear or when you want it to sleep.
4. Keep it out of intense heat. Excess exposure to high temperatures can damage it. This also causes accelerated wear and tear on the battery. Shield it from the sit in a climate-controlled room of moderate temperature. Never keep it in your car on the seat or dashboard for too long, either.
5. Put it in sleep mode when not in use. This will allow you to use your device only when absolutely necessary. The rest of the time, you’re not using much power at all. You can even remove the device’s battery, although you might feel embarrassed to do that in public.
6. Disable your wireless connection when you don’t need it. If you’re driving or if you’re on an airplane, you probably don’t need it. Turn the laptop off or at least disable the connection when not in range of one.
7. Unplug the cord from your laptop once in a while. You can burn your device out if you leave it plugged in too long. Keeping your cord in and charging it to the max can cause your battery to lose its power over time. To preserve your battery’s life, use about 50 to 75% of the power in it before recharging it.
You have other options for optimizing your laptop battery as well. For instance, you can mute the volume or adjust your screen resolution. The most import point to remember is to not run too many programs at the same time, especially if you’re not using them. If you have programs running at the Startup, try a free application like Startup Boost that will help you identify if these are necessary.
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