How to increase battery life of laptop

A lot of use are concerned about the battery life of our notebook/laptops. While on the move, none of us likes to run out of battery and lose out on precious time. I will give you tips to enhance the battery life without spending a single penny!

Tip 1: Reduce display brightness

The best way to save on battery life is to reduce the brightness of your display. Display uses up a lot of battery and hence leads to draining of charge faster. You can either set up different power plans for different situations so that you can easily switch between them according to your needs. Other way is to reduce the display brightness manually when you know that you won’t have access to AC power for a longer period of time.

Tip 2: Disconnect external peripherals

Disconnect peripherals connected to external ports of the laptop. External components such as mouse, speakers etc. draw up power from the battery. Use the touchpad instead of using the mouse. Do not use devices such as laptop cooler which also suck up power.

Tip 3: Use Power Management options

Almost every operating system has inbuilt power management options. Always set the screensaver time to low. Also set low times in power management for “turn off monitor” and “turn of display” options so that if they are idle then they get switched off automatically saving loads of battery.

Tip 4: Turn of speakers, WiFi and Bluetooth

Do not forget to turn off WiFi,Bluetooth if you are not using them. Also mute the speakers to save some crucial battery life.

Tip 5: Monitor running processes

Keep a close eye on the processes running in the background to see the amount of CPU and RAM they are using. Close any unnecessary processes that are using CPU/RAM resources. This can help your laptop to use less power while running.

Tip 6: Use only certified operating systems and hardware

This tip is valid for both software and hardware. Use only certified operating system on your laptop as the hardware has been optimised for it. Also if you plan to add extra RAM/HDD to your laptop then make sure it is truly compatible with your laptop.

Tip 7: Do not leave CD/DVD in the drive

Leaving a CD/DVD in the optical drive leads to unnecessary spinning of the head which consumes power. Remove any CD/DVD from the drive after it is no longer required.

Tip 8: Keep your drivers and software updated

Although this might not lead to significant battery boost up but still it is recommended to keep your laptop drivers and various softwares updated. Some driver updates bring in changes to reduce power consumption. Also newer softwares are more efficient than previous ones and hence tend to use less of system resources.

These tips can help you to increase your laptop battery life by a good amount. But as a thumb rule remember to either choose a 9-cell battery while buying a laptop, if you need longer backup or else buy a spare battery.