When I bought my laptop, the primary reason I chose it over a desktop was the factor of mobility. And it’s friggin’ battery pack is threatening to take away my freedom with it’s lowering battery life. If it goes on like this I’m pretty sure it’ll go bust in another few months and I might face the bill of a new one. It’s this particular problem that forced me to seek out ways to better my laptops battery life so that I don’t have to shell out more money for a new battery. And below are those very solutions so that they can help out my readers:

1. Be Cool but keep your Laptop cooler All electronics operate more efficiently when they are cooler. Increasing temperatures increase resistance and thus use up more power to execute the same operations. Therefore, the first thing you got to do is to let your laptop breathe easier. Clean the air vents of your notebook – there’s a high chance that you’ll find a lot of grime stuck within. You could use a cloth, brush or compressed air to make your work easier.

2. Update the BIOS The latest software is always better. Update your system’s BIOS (it controls the laptop’s hardware). Most manufacturers offer an installation file that updates BIOS files automatically, which often address heat management. Just make sure that your notebook is connected to the power supply when updating the BIOS. You don’t want to brick your laptop now, do you.

See Also: 

3. Defrag your HDD Defragmentation does what it says – it tidies up your files so that they are contiguous rather than fragmented. Contigious files allow faster reading and put lower strain on your system. It also gets things done faster and smoother. But, if you have a SSD you might not want to do this as it has a detrimental effect on the lifespan of those solid state memory. Mac users don’t necessaril have to do this either – the OS takes care of it.

4. Remove External Devices .. unless you need them right now. Plugging in everything you own to the computer is a surefire way to drain out the laptop battery. If you’re running on battery I wouldn’t recommend those lappy cooler fans and stands, you’ll be better of using a ThermaPak to cool your laptop. Charge your iPod using it’s charger – it’s faster and won’t hurt your laptop.

5. Dim the Screen If you’re indoors you probably won’t need your display at full brightness – so why don’t you lower that to a more optimal level. It’s better for your eyes too.

6. Keep the battery contacts Clean If you have a laptop that features user replaceable batteries then youu ought to clean your battery’s contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. Don’t use whiskey please. This will allow more efficient transfer of power from the battery.

7. Hibernate instead of StandBy Agreed that stand-by modes are good for short periods of time but if it’s more than an hour. Anything more than an hour and hibernation is your best choice – it will save your PCs state and completely shut down as well.

8. Optimize your Power Options Optimize your power options at the control panel so that you can customize it depending on your usage patterns. Or you could just select the Maximum Batterypreset.

9. Update your OS Get the latest OS update out there. Each successive software update usually has better efficiency and performance as it’s first priority. When you update through OSs – like from Mac SL to Lion –  try to go for a full on fresh install rather than installing over the current OS.

10. Lower the Graphics Use Most modern laptops have an option that allows you to select the graphics that you wish to utilise at a particular time. Unless you require the discrete card try to use the integrated option as much as you can. There’s a world of difference between the two. NVIDIA users usually have the Optimus Technology on their systems while Mac users have built-in support.

CloudTag: Laptop , Battery Life , batteryfast.co.uk , Sony NP-FH60 battery , Acer al10b31 battery , Canon nb-4l battery