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Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life

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Laptops tend to lose their charm quickly when you’re constantly looking for the nearest power outlet to charge up. How do you keep your battery going for as long as possible? Here are 15 easy ways to do so.

1. Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its work – less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 1/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… applicable for Apple systems.

2. Dim your screen – Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.

3. Cut down on programs running in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn’t crucial when you’re on battery.

4. Cut down external devices – USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.

5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.

6. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse. Even having one in the drive can be power consuming. They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used. Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.

7. Keep the battery contacts clean: Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.

8. Take care of your battery – Exercise the Battery. Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time. Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is only for older batteries with memory effects)

9. Hibernate not standby – Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.

10. Keep operating temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it’s cooler. Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or refer to some extra tips by LapTopMag.com.

11. Set up and optimize your power options – Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect). friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 2/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… 12. Don’t multitask – Do one thing at a time when you’re on battery. Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3′s, set your mind to one thing only. If you don’t you’ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!

13. Go easy on the PC demands – The more you demand from your PC. Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD. If you’ve got a single battery charge – pick your priorities wisely.

14. Get yourself a more efficient laptop - Laptops are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.

15. Prevent the Memory Effect - If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want to prevent the ‘memory effect’ – Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.

Bonus Tip #1: Turn off the autosave function. MS-Word’s and Excel’s autosave functions are great but because they keep saving regular intervals, they work your hard driver harder than it may have to. If you plan to do this, you may want to turn it back on as the battery runs low. While it saves battery life in the beginning, you will want to make sure your work is saved when your battery dies.

Bonus Tip #2: Lower the graphics use. You can do this by changing the screen resolution and shutting off fancy graphic drivers. Graphics cards (video cards) use as much or more power today as hard disks – Thanks Andrew

Update 7/7/07: Bonus Tip #1 to give caution about turning off autosave, tip #8 to change information about discharging batteries – thanks to all who pointed it out. Added Bonus tip #2, Tip #1 to add in clause in regards to Mac OSX, Tip #1 about the spinning of hard drives – thanks to all who pointed it out

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[tags] laptop battery, battery life, notebook battery [/tags]

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276 Comments For This Post

1. wong Says:

But most battery has their own life-cycle, which limited their recharged times :P Anyway, I did those you stated when I first get my laptop ;)

2. Jamie Says:

Thanks for that! Didn’t know that I had to exercise my battery. Mine typically goes unused for a month at least! Uh oh.

3. didi Says:

If u didnt travel, just use at house, then is better to take the battery out and use AC instead. But have to be caution of lighting strike or voltage spike… If possible get another surge protector when u want to use AC power…

4. Thai Says:

OK, the tips are really useful! Thanks for them! Hope my battery will last longer from now on..

5. syahid ali Says: friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 4/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… and don’t stay too long with your pc. shut down your pc and take a nap. make your LIFE longer. :D

6. davidlian Says:

I’ve just got one more tip to share – Don’t play games on your laptop, especially not World of Warcraft.

Load The Burning Crusade on your laptop and take it for a swing at Starbucks, and you’d end up with a burnt battery.

7. engtech @ internet duct tape Says:

I’ve got a particularly bad battery on my laptop. It constantly overheats… might be an issue with the fans not running sometimes.

My laptop is a lemon, not an apple.

8. Watch TV Online Says:

Also try removing usb devices if plugged in they suck up energy even when not in use (those shiny lights take electricity which gets sucked from your laptops battery).

9. Dan Says:

Authoritative information here folks – DO NOT leave lithium-polymer batteries discharged for long periods! I work for a major laptop manufacturer, leave your battery halfway charged, or fully if you don’t have time to figure out halfway. Independently verify this folks, it’s very important – read your manual – Roomba, laptop, iPod, etc. – what ever it is using lithium-polymer. You’ll see clearly NOT to leave the battery discharged if you’re not using it for a while. Doing so can cause a complete failure of the battery, or shorten its charge capacity.

Admin Note – Thanks for the tip : Have edited the post

10. Fran Taylor Says:

If you have a decent file system on your hard drive, you don’t need to defragment it. So if you really want to save power, Windows is out. If you use Linux and PowerTop, you can see exactly where the power is being consumed. My battery lasts twice as long under Linux as it does under Windows.

11. none Says:

If you don’t believe the guy from the laptop company, take a read at http://www.batteryuniversity.com

the “drain the battery” days are long gone, if they ever existed. Modern LiON batteries have no memory effect and should be stored at 1/2 charge for best results, fully charged is acceptable, stored drained = ruined battery. They also lose maxumum capacity whether you use them or not, so don’t worry much about charge cycles.

The battery tips here are pretty much 100% wrong, and will cause maximum damage. Sorry guy.

Admin Note – Thanks for the tip : Have edited the post

12. Dickbain Says:

Great tips! Not sure about the stand-by vs hibernation. I’ve left my laptop [IBM T60] on standby for 2 weeks and when I fired it up, I had 98% battery remaining. Hibernation has always been flaky at best. I’ve lost more work due to hibernation over the year than I care to remember…I say, Standby is the way to go!

friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 5/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

13. Antony Jones Says:

Yep – number 8 is wrong though. Like laptop guy said, 40% charge is ideal for dormant batteries. Forget about standby too. Just unplug it!

Admin Note – Thanks for the tip : Have edited the post

14. Lil_jimmy Says:

I have a few problems with a couple of these. #1, your hard drive is always spinning when the computer is on. The read/write heads are what moves with activity. The only thing you can do to keep your HD from spinning as much is to turn the computer off.

#5, more RAM takes more energy to run. It’s not always more efficent to add more. If your computer isn’t using the page file much as it is, then it would probably be a waste (as far as efficency goes) to add more RAM. Ram uses about 15W of power per GB.

15. jambarama Says:

If you are using Linux, most of the options still apply. On nice feature, if you’re using KDE, is a system tray program called “Klaptop.” This lets you “throttle” down your CPU manually, so if you know you will be doing light stuff, no need to fire up all 2+ ghz of your CPU to open Firefox. Throttle it down to 50%, your computer won’t be as snappy, but the battery will last a lot longer.

16. Andrew Pollack Says:

Lil_jimmy is wrong, but so are some tips here.

Lil_jimmy — hard disks can be set with power options to spin down when not accessed for “x” minutes. This really does spin them down. All the way down. Just like off. Of course, if you’re multitasking, using auto-save, or low on ram you’re hitting the drive so often it never gets a chance to reach that period — but if you’re watching a dvd or if you’re reading a long document this will help.

Also, Lil_jimmy — while it takes more energy to keep more ram energized, it’s also true that most users don’t have enough and thus are using their hard disk for the difference via the swapping file. This is really hard on the disk, very slow for the PC, and a serious power drain.

You can combine these things and get fancy — add a flash card reader, and set your auto-save and temp directories to that. There are now even IDE interface smart card readers that seem like a hard disk for your PC but they’re still expensive and geek-only.

As far as the article –

Turning off auto-save when you’re working on battery is idiotic. That’s when you need it most. It’s all well and good to save a little power with it off, until you bump the machine, pour coffee in it, or run out of power anyway and loose that two hours of work. “Its all good fun until someone loses and eye.”

More:

Some batteries should NOT be left discharged for long periods, as they can fail (sometimes catastrophically). Others require deep recycle maintenance. To care for your battery, read the friendly manual that came with it and find out what is best. Batteries — more than any other component — vary drastically from type to type in their chemical makeup and thus their care.

As far as defragmenting the hard disk – this has different benefits today than it used to. The act of moving files around that in the past never changed and thus each sector never moved causes the sectors to be re-writen. In machines that have a long life span, this is valuable because you can have some sectors sit untouched for so long the magnetic charge weakens over time. Modern operating systems use file storage techniques (formats) that are less prone to performance problems from fragmented files, but it does still drain the drive and take a bit longer.

MOST modern defrag utilities are smart enough to NOT activate when you’re on battery power, so they themselves aren’t causing drive activity and draining power.

FINALLY — the article missed two really essential ways to save a LOT of power. friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 6/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

1. SHUT OFF the WIFI if you don’t need it. Usually, there is a switch, but sometimes you have to do it in the WIFI config. Turn off that radio (which you should be doing on airplanes anyway). That WIFI radio transmitter uses a good bit of power. It uses even more when you’re NOT connected since it’s “seeking” your home connection and often ramps up the power to try to find it. Think of how fast your cell phone drains when you have poor coverage.

2. Lower the graphics use. You can do this be changing the screen resolution and shutting off fancy graphic drivers. Graphics cards (video cards) use as much or more power today as hard disks.

Hope this helps.

–Andrew

Generally speaking – read the booklet that came with your laptop!

Admin Note – Thanks for the tip : Have edited the post for the auto save and your 2nd tip. Your 1st tip was already in the original post

17. LongJohn Says:

try the blue pill ;-) just kidding …

18. opticron Says:

Again, if you are running linux, the very latest kernel has a feature called “tickless”. This means that if nothing is requesting regular interrupts for a timer or something similar, the kernel will put the cpu in sleep mode for extended periods of time (such as while you’re reading this page) and it will consume MUCH less battery power.

19. James Yeang Says:

Thanks for some of the pointers guys, the post has been amended in several places.

20. James Yeang Says:

Dickbain: On my laptop… Standby lasts me a matter of hours, hibernate – as long as I have ever wanted. Are you sure your laptop did not shut off after being on standby for so long?

21. easan Says:

Anyone notice that #8 and #15 contradict. One says never fully discharge battery. The other says fully discharge it every two weeks.

Admin Note – These are referring to different battery types Li-On batts vs older ones with memory effects.

22. jesse Says:

buy a lenovo with a 9 cell battery. that’s how you extend your laptop’s battery life…these things run forever.

23. lil_jimmy Says:

Andrew Pollack ~ No I am not wrong, you missed my point entirely.

My point was the writer said that defragging will reduce the spin of your disks. That is incorrect, it only reduces the movement of your read/write heads. The only way to reduce the spinning is to turn the HD off (through power managment as you said), but defragging has nothing to do with that.

My second point was that adding more RAM isn’t ALWAYS the best option. Sometimes it is, friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 7/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… sometimes it isn’t. Depends on how much RAM you already have.

I think you need to work on your reading comprehension skills before you go spouting off about how wrong people are.

Admin Note: I have changed the wording so it refers to how fast the drive works rather than how much it spins. Thanks for pointing that out.

24. Ben Says:

Why does everyone seem to think that OS X is totally self defragging?! It is but only to a point! It will automatically defrag the system files ONLY. It does not defrag your applications, documents, or anything other then the core OS. Defragmenting using a program like Drive Genius will still show a benefit. Please stop the spread of this very common misconception.

Admin Note: Official documentation from Apple suggests that there is little benefit from defragging OSX. See Link below http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668

25. Jay Says:

even though adding more memory may or may not improve battery life, you still have to think that the stock ram on most laptops are lacking around 30mb of memory from their stated capaciy, so replacing it can help (ie. instead of 996 of 1024 or 448 from 512, from the laptop company, a new one with the exact number can improve performance slightly without a power usage increase.)

26. Ben Says:

Sure the Apple documentation says otherwise. Just as what the Apple employees that develop the OS will tell those that work with them otherwise also. ;-)

27. James Yeang Says:

@Ben: It’s not that they just claim to handle fragmentation better, Apple actually discourages defrags for OSX.

28. Ben Says:

@James, yes they also discourage replacing the iPod battery. I’ve been told by several OS X developers that work for Apple that defragmentation can be beneficial to a point and is not detrimental to the state of the OS. It’s not always needed but can be helpful in some situations.

29. fb Says:

And if you use a bigger bsttery, then you also have more time:

http://zonow.com/55

30. Bios Says:

This is a pretty rudimentary lists of things to keep your laptop battery in check, thanks for sharing this though.

31. Geert Says:

Li-Ion cells should not be completely drained. This part is true. HOWEVER, a Li-ion battery (one or more cells packaged together) has a chip to prevent this from happening. So it is not possible to damage a Li-Ion (or Li-polymer) battery by completely draining it. friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 8/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… The problem is that this little chip only knows what ‘Full’ and ‘empty’ is by calibration. Once it nears empty, the voltage drops considerably. Similarly, once it nears a full charge, the voltage rises sharply.

Running a Li-ion battery empty and subsequently give it a full charge is a GOOD thing because this will re-calibrate the chip to the full charge range. Doing so once every two months will keep a Li-ion battery fit.

32. MaNiAc Says:

Jay said, on July 9th, 2007 at 7:19 am “even though adding more memory may or may not improve battery life, you still have to think that the stock ram on most laptops are lacking around 30mb of memory from their stated capaciy, so replacing it can help (ie. instead of 996 of 1024 or 448 from 512, from the laptop company, a new one with the exact number can improve performance slightly without a power usage increase.)”

LOL!!! this made me laugh…those mb that are missing are beeing used by your graphic card… if you change the stock ram to another one you’ll still end up with 32mb (or more) less

33. davper Says:

The best way is to get a laptop that uses a secondary battery. My HP allows me to attach a 6 hour battery to my laptop giving me 8 hours of run time on my 17″ wide screen.

34. Brett Terpstra Says:

Re: Defragging OS X.

It helps. I do a lot of video/audio editing and move large files frequently. I run the Tech Tool suite and DiskWarrior and get noticeable performance gains when my drive and btree structure are not a mess. Apple can say what they like, but the drives do fragment. I’ve noticed on some of my other work macs that don’t handle video that the drives are rarely in need of defragging, so there is SOME truth to the statement that it’s not required. I don’t, however, believe anyone who says that it’s detrimental.

35. K Says:

I don’t agree that having background apps running is necessarily a big drain on power. It is if those apps are busy doing something — crunching numbers, downloading files, etc. — but not if they are idle, like a spreadsheet; they just take up space in memory. Maybe you cause it to swap out if you use a lot of other things, but that’s reduced if you follow tip #5.

I’m not keen on telling people to turn off autosave, either. It could be a big help in the case when you didn’t get to manually save before the machine suddenly goes into hibernate or standby because the battery got low.

36. James Yeang Says:

@K: It all adds up, I don’t expect everyone to implement everything on this list, parts of it, esp. since tip #5 involves spending money.

As for turning off autosave, see my cautionary note ” If you plan to do this, you may want to turn it back on as the battery runs low. While it saves battery life in the beginning, you will want to make sure your work is saved when your battery dies.”

37. Brombomb Says:

#9 is great, unless you plan on moving your laptop. AFAIK when you hibernate your disk state is saved, but the Hard disk drive heads are not moved away from the cylinders. This means if you quickly move your laptop, you run the risk of scratching you Hard Disk Drive permanently destroying its capabilities friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 9/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

38. Andrew Pollack Says:

Brombomb — bzzzt. That’s not the case. The drive heads are parked during hybernate. Hybernate is just exactly the same as OFF. It is OFF. The only difference is that the operating system saves the contents of the RAM memory into a file on the disk drive, and knows how to reload that back into ram and kick start the system again the next time it boots.

Off is off. Heads are parked. You can remove the battery and the power cord in hibernate and not loose anything. Off. Really. Its off.

Hell, some good drives will even park the heads really fast if they feel an inertia change that might be a fall, so that by the time the PC hits the floor the heads are parked on the drive EVEN WHEN ITS RUNNING.

Off is off.

39. Mindflayer Says:

Don’t turn down the resolution. Use your LCD’s native resolution, otherwise the GPU and CPU interpolate.

40. Andrew Pollack Says:

Uris — interpolation is happening, but neither in the CPU or in the GPU. It happens in the monitor’s chipset (which can be done in a variety of ways).

The only exception to this would be if you’re playing some higher end games — in which case saving battery power isn’t your issue.

The GPU and CPU generally don’t know what kind of monitor you have connected.

Ok, true, sometimes you can have a monitor driver installed that could in theory offload this task to the gpu, but its pretty unusual for that to happen.

Still — you’re right in one respect, the resolution isn’t going to have as big an impact as the use of the graphics accelerator options and fancy appearance options.

41. Martin Butt Says:

If it is convenient to use a mains adaptor, use it instead of the battery. Also remove the battery when running off of mains.

42. Mathew7 Says:

Defragmenting is most beneficial on FAT drives (FAT32/FAT16). The idea is that one file is split over lots of pieces of identical size (clusters in DOS/Windows world), which is common to all filesystems. But there is some information regarding the continuation of the pieces. FAT32 uses a straight table at the beginning in which for cluster i, fat[i] tells you the next piece location (next i). So if you are badly fragmented, it will alter reading fat and file data, thus moving the HDD heads between front and middle/back sectors. I don’t know on NTFS how this is improved, but for linux ext2fs that “next piece” information is MUCH closer to a file’s data. There is only one big table related to free space, but it does not hurt performance so much if you don’t write constantly new pieces (e.g. video procesing). And I think OSX uses a modification of ext2fs (never had any Macs so I don’t know).

43. bob Says:

For windows get Speedswitch – http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/index.html

You can more finely utilize Windows support of Intel’s Speedstep technology. This enables the system to dynamically adjust processor speed to accomodate your current workload. The architecture is built in to XP, SpeedSwitch merely enables you to fine-tune it. friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 10/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

It has 3 basic levels of performance-Max Performance which keep sthe processor running at 100%), Max Battery (which aggressively throttles down EVERYTHING-makes my battery last forever), and Dynamic Switching, which will adjust processor speed according to workload.

44. Tyler Says:

is it better to have your laptop plugged in while using it when possible, or is it better to charge and then run down the battery a ways then recharge?

45. jos Says:

good advise… the defrag doesnt really apply to macs… but all of the others can… i hate dimming my screen but it really does increase battery life :)

46. Ben Says:

Re: Mac OS X Defraging….

Hot file clustering works by ensuring that newly created and hotfiles are contained within the largest contiguous freespace. It is a very effective system but it is hindered when you have no large contiguous freespace areas. Software programs like Drive Genius cooperate with this exceptional technology by ensuring and/or creating the maximum possible contiguous free space. So yes, is beneficial to defrag in OS X.

47. Fran Taylor Says:

Lil_jimmy:

Where do you get your data about 1 Gb of RAM using 15 watts?

This computer has 1 Gb of RAM and the entire computer only uses 15.5 watts:

http://www.linuxpowertop.org/results.php

My RAM upgrade is showing up tomorrow from NewEgg, I will use my power meter before and after the upgrade and post the results.

48. Fran Taylor Says:

Mathew7:

The OSX file system is called HFS+. It’s a newer version of the HFS file system that Macs have had since the Mac Plus in 1985. It was designed to work as quickly as possible given the 800K floppy disks that they had to work with. Even by today’s standards, it’s a pretty good design.

49. Al Says:

Throttling the CPU down (AKA under-clocking) is very important. On windows, the best way I’ve found for doing this is a nifty utility called Notebook Hardware Control. Ubuntu repositories also have a few (although the names escape me at the moment…)

50. Richard Says:

A very important point is that capacity of modern Li-Ion or Li-Polymer batteries will degrade over time. This happens faster at higher temperatures (exponentially), so it’s important that the battery never gets very warm. It’s said that at 70°C (160°F) a batterys usefull life is reduced to few days. So never!! place the laptop on your pillow or soft bed, where the vents are nearly blocked and the battery will get burning hot against the isolating surface. 70°C will happen easily when sitting in bed with the laptop, if you’re not carefull. friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 11/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… Also avoid storing the laptop at high temperatures. @Geert: The problem with draining Li-Ion/-Poly batteries is not that the undervoltage protection does not work. But the batteries do have som inherent self-drain over time. So if you drain the battery as low as the protection will allow (thats when the laptop/telephone/ipod turns off, and the power button has no effect), and then store it for a few months, the battery will self-drain below the recoverable tresshold, and won’t be able to charge again. A fully charged battery can be left for a long time, before self-drain will affect it seriously.

51. Fran Taylor Says:

Okay, I replaced two 256M SIMMs with two 512M SIMMs, and I am unable to measure any difference in power consumption. The SIMMs are directly beneath the palm rest on the keyboard, and I am unable to detect any difference in temperature, either. So max out that RAM! It’s cheap and you WILL notice the performance difference. Another myth debunked!

52. Andrew Pollack Says:

Fran, unless you’re metering between the laptop and the power brick, or better between the battery and the system board, you’re not likely to see a difference.

The power brick probably tosses off more energy as waste heat than the difference from the additional ram. I’d be surprised if you saw much difference in draw when sitting idle vs. using your hard disk extensively if you’re just looking at the wall socket side for consumption.

53. Fran Taylor Says:

Andrew,

You only reinforce my point. Power consumption is not magic. As far as the power cord is concerned, your computer is just a big resistor. Electricity goes in and heat comes out. If you can’t measure it, it isn’t there, and it’s not going to affect the power budget. RAM is really only burning power when it’s being accessed. So the amount of RAM is not going to change the power usage significantly, except to make it go down because it’s replacing disk accesses. “Too much RAM” is never a problem. Modern OS’s (even Windows!) will appropriate unused RAM and cache disk contents on it. If you have a LOT of RAM (relative to what you are directly using), eventually all the disk that you ever touch will be loaded into RAM and the computer will not touch the disk at all, except to flush dirty buffers, or if you explicitly sync. This is good on servers because it makes them faster, it’s good on laptops because they use less power. The only danger is losing your work in a crash if your data isn’t flushed to disk. Choosing your OS and applications carefully is the best way to avoid crashes.

The two most productive (and most difficult to achieve in practice) ways to save power are: power down the disk because you aren’t using it, and, get the processor to execute fewer cycles by slowing the clock and/or using its sleep modes. All modern computer hardware is CMOS based, and we all learned in electronics class that CMOS transistors use almost no power in their quiescent state, it’s only the act of switching that causes current to flow.

So buy more RAM! Lots of it! If you haven’t maxed out your RAM, you are wasting power.

54. Richard Says:

Fran Taylor that is not really correct. The main RAM in our computers is DRAM, which stands for Dynamic RAM. Dynamic RAM is the most compact RAM type, as there is no capacitor in each memory cell (it works because of the small parasitic capacitance of the CMOS transistors themself). Because of this, DRAM is very dense, leading to large memories. However the missing capacitors mean that DRAM can only hold information for a very short time – few microseconds. This is solved by constantly refreshing (reading and writing back) the entire memory. The circuit to do this is insignificant in size compared to the size gain of using capacitor-less memory-cells. Becaus of this DRAM actually uses power constantly. It also makes the memory a bit slower and less deterministic, as a read access may coincide with a refresh. Contrast this to Static RAM which is used for cache and as use memory cells which can keep a charge without being refreshed (they contain a full flip-flop in every cell). This is why cache memory is never very large, and still takes up quite a lot of room. On the other hand, cache memory only uses power on friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 12/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… access. I’m not saying that more memory might save power because of reduced hard disk use – it might. Buying a new hard-disk will also help, they are really getting a low better too. I just changed a 40GB Hitachi HDD to a 80GB Hitachi HDD, and the nominal power printed on the drives was 5W and 3W respectively (5V 1A, and 5V 600mA). Thats quite impressive considering it’s only a year or two newer tech, and it got bigger at the same time.

55. asdf Says:

@ Fran Taylor,

You’re somewhat wrong about never having too much ram. 32 bit windows doesn’t have the capability of addressing more than 3gb of ram, and even to access the full 3 gb it needs a change in the startup files. putting 4gb of ram in a XP box is a complete waste of 1gb of ram, the operating system simply doesn’t have enough memory addresses to use the ram. of course, 4gb of ram would be a bit rare on a laptop, but i’m sure there’s someone out there wasting it.

56. Fran Taylor Says:

Richard, of course you are right about DRAM. But only the memory cells themselves need to be refreshed, the muxes and buffers on the chips (not insignificant) are standard CMOS and all that I said applies to them. Given that the SIMMs are cool to the touch when the computer is idle, the energy needed to refresh is pretty minimal. As with your drive, technology marches on, and 512 Mb SIMMs seem to use the same power as 256 Mb SIMMs.

asdf, there is a whole world of Operating Systems and processors out there besides Windows and 32- bit Intel. I have a Windows machine too, but I only use it when I have to, and I wash carefully afterward.

If your laptop even takes 4 Gb of RAM, you’re probably one of those folks who gets a new car every two years. I have a $300 Compaq that I bought at a flea market. It’s in utterly perfect condition, the battery is good for two DVD movies, it runs Google Earth surprisingly well, and Fedora 7 runs like a champ on it.

57. rules Says:

Is it a good practice to remove the battery and plug your laptop to the power source directly whenever available? Will this save battery life?

58. Mircea Says:

Real story, my own story. Had my first laptop a few years ago, ruined the battery in the first year. Sold it (the laptop) got a new one. From the very beggining, I stored the battery 40% charged, when at home, on AC power. Every month I do on the battery a full cycle: discharge it to 5%, recharge it to 100%, discharge it back to 40%. The result? It’s been three and a half years since I have this laptop and my battery still last for 3 hours and a half. When new, it would last 5 hours. So judge for yourself.

59. Dale Says:

This may not help your battery’s run time in the short term, but will help extend it’s life expectancy. When not using the battery, drain it to 40%. Then, put it in a ziplock bag, and put it in the fridge (never the freezer.) The cold tempurates inhibits the chemical reactions that are constantly taking place in the battery, and thus slows down the battery’s rate of decay.

60. Steve Says:

Convert your AMD64 3000 “desktop replacement” to AC. Install power supply inside with extra fan-safely!. Eternal battery for the rare occasions you need it.

friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 13/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

61. Elwyn Jenkins Says:

Top list of things to do. This is as comprehensive a list that I have ever seen on this topic. Thanks.

62. nis Says:

looks like there are many experts in here on laptop battery. I came across this site and saw a whopping 8hrs of battery life that a backup battery gives at http://xpalpower.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!C8558CDA43129A3B!184/

please share comments and advise on this product…

63. irone Says:

I wanted to increase my battery life. I found (and purchased) an accessory at: http://www.batmax.com just to see how it works. And I had a good surprise. I got around 50% more battery life with my Apple MPB after a week and half.

64. PeltierJuntcion Says:

FAT is definitely much worse than NTFS when it comes to fragmentation. But NTFS does not entirely escape the performance hit due to fragmentation either. You still need to defrag regularly to maintain optimum performance, especially on the slow drives found in most notebooks. I have a Lenovo 3000 series N100 with a 100GB HDD, and I was using the built in windows XP defragmenter until about a week ago. My laptop is my primary work and entertainment machine, so it sees heavy use day in and day out. To keep things running smooth, I would defrag every weekend, but it took quite a bit of time, and didnt defrag some files either. Since last week, I have been using the trial version of Diskeeper 2007 Professional, and it is in a different league altogether. I dont have to wait for weekends to defrag anymore – the automatic defrag of Diskeeper defrags the drive whenever the machine is idle without leeching system resources. Fantastic software. I plan to get the full version once my trial period is up.

Selecting a battery is a tradeoff between usage time and weight. I am going in for a Dell XPS 1330 (if they ship the damn things on time!!!) and as I look through the reviews, I find that the 9 cell battery extends usage time ( d’uh) but with a great hit in weight which rises to more than 2 kg. Opt for the bigger battery and heavier load, or go with low weight, hoping that there are convenient socket points available when required? Decisions, decisions! :(

65. Joshua Madaki Says:

These tips are good for me. Thanks so much for this site.

But I have a problem with my laptop, I on it one day and the lapstop has stoped coming up since that day , is it battary problem, the laptop is Hp. Any useful information can be sent to my mail. Thanks

66. AHyKA Says:

thanks a lot for the useful tips. got linked o here frpm Yaho. just as I expected it was really good and has taught me a lot…

67. Dr. QUOC BINH Says:

The tips are very helpful. thank you. Please let me know how to charge a battery to have long life bettery but it does not problem with my laptop

68. N. newton Says:

I know keeping your laptop cool is one of the tips.. I looked on newegg.com, and they have these friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 14/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… fan/cooler type mounts.. that you put ur laptop on and helps keep it cool. Only 16.00 bucks do you feel this a worth while item? My laptop is running fine its about 2 months old but im tryin to keep ina good condition for as long as I can.. Thanks

69. James Yeang Says:

Thanks guys for all the good feedback… for all those who shared their own experience and gave some tips – much appreciated!

For those who asked questions:

@N. newton: I think it’s good but bulky. Don’t know if battery life and performance is worth the cash and bulk unless your machine is prone to overheating.

@Dr.Quoc Binh: Not sure what your question is? The post kinda says it all

@Joshua Madaki: Try HP support. They would be the best option.

70. N. newton Says:

Thanks for the tip, but arent laptops known to overheat? I havea Dell Inspirion E1505 15.4 inch screen

71. Andrew Pollack Says:

I’m testing a new freeware util that seems to really help. I won’t know for a few days how well it really helps but initially it seems good.

CPU Mag recommended it. Its called “speedswitch XP” and its free. I’m trying it out. It claims to be a much more aggressive and active “speedstep” like program that throttles down the CPU when it is not being taxed. Intel’s “Speedstep” is what comes with most pc’s for this, but this one seems to be more aggressive and automatically uses different profiles if you’re on battery vs. mains power.

It has a bunch of options and looks good. We’ll see if it helps.

72. James Yeang Says:

@ N. Newton – not really. Those which consume less power generally produce less heat. Check out: http://www.superwarehouse.com/intel_centrino_laptops_explained.cfm

@Andrew Pollack: Awesome! Do let us know results from it

73. martin888 Says:

i have another trick to prolong the life of my battery by 30 to 40 percent longer… i put it in the freezer overnight or when it is not being used.

74. Anthony LoTempio Says:

My wife uses her laptop pluged in at home,with battery in, so far no problems, The laptop and battery are13 months old, are we doing the right thing, or should I pull out the battery when pluged in?

75. Andrew Pollack Says:

It is my opinion, as someone who’s spent considering time on the subject though not qualified to design batteries, that there some things are more risk than benefit.

Putting a battery the freezer may help chemically, but risks expansion and contraction of metallic parts and solder points. It also risks condensation on the electronics that are inside any lithium based battery back to control the flow of those high tech batteries. friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 15/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… Taking a battery our when not in use may help — it definitely will reduce heat exposure — but you risk the damage of moving it around all the time and wearing out the connection points and latches. If its out for long periods of time, be careful of oxidation on the contact points which will reduce efficiency somewhat (though admittedly, I don’t know how much).

76. anonymous Says:

i have a gateway laptop, and i charge my battery at least two times a day. it overheats very fast. is there anything that can help this problem?

77. Abhishek Patel Says:

Really Nice Ways to save my Lep’s power… Thx a looott for offering such steps…in future as well… :)

78. Andrew Pollack Says:

Follow-up – results of testing SpeedSwitch-XP

I like the tool, it has a lot of good information in its displays and seems to help somewhat. Unfortunately, its not a huge advantage for me — maybe 15%. The real problem I have is that this battery is, at nearly two years old, starting to wear out. I take an hour to go from 100% to 60%, and than 15 minutes to finish it off. Some of the cells are clearly in bad shape.

Here’s a link to the speedswitch tool. If you’re not already using Intel’s Speedstep this will make a HUGE difference.

It also will make a MUCH bigger difference P4 machines as apposted to Core Duo or Core 2 Duo.

http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/index.html

79. Laura Says:

I have a mac, which tends to run much smoother and has a longer battery life than PC’s. My suggestion: buy a Mac.

80. Andrew Pollack Says:

@Laurie — That’s brilliant.

#1. The only reason Macs tend to run with less crashes is that they don’t support much hardware and drivers for anything but Apple’s own or USB stuff. Windows based machines support every idiot’s poorly made driver and software.

#2. Apple hardware, today, is virtually the same as PC hardware. The batteries especially run off the same assembly lines.

#3. The same goes for the outdated belief that Macs are better at video. That was true in the 80′s and early 90′s when the motorola chipset was better at handling those things. Since almost all high end video is now done on its own processor (the GPU) and the GPUs used by Apple and Wintel PC’s are the very same ones this is also no longer the case.

True, the apple’s look better and many people like them a great deal. I have problem with that — I may be the last one left standing that doesn’t care for OSX (yes, I have two machines that use it) but I don’t claim that to be on a technical basis. I simply am odd enough or set in my ways enough to prefer my windows boxes for desktop use and command line linux for my servers. Ah well.

81. James Yeang Says:

@Andrew Pollack: Thanks for the followup – I’m sure all of us will benefit from your insight!

friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 16/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

82. reza aarabi Says:

tankes for your top 15 ways to keep my laptops battery.I tel in my English class in iran.

83. memory Says:

The SonyVaio laptop battery life is so aggravating, it may last 1 hour and 37 minutes, give or take a few minutes!!..lol It really pisss me off too.

84. Keith Rider Says:

I bought a ‘new’ battery for my old IBM 600E off Ebay. Put it in and it worked fine. Tried it for about an hour and it still said that there was 80 mins of usage left. The first time I really used it I went to a family party and took the laptop to show some wedding photos. After about 90 minutes the battery warning came on, so plugged in the charger. It wouldn’t charge up and it was out of its 30 day warranty.

If you get a ‘new’ battery, be sure to ‘use’ it so that you can check its going to be OK.

85. Ahmed Says:

tip1: don’t use the labtop while its charging, and olso dont leave the labtop in the charger and use it for long time while the battery is charged, if you want to use the A/C adapter, remove the battery.

86. e-laptop-battery Says:

I want to post your article to my website, OK?

87. Raymond Says:

I find something helpful in this site too.

http://www.intelligentbatteries.com/XX_Tips.htm

88. luvmytiki Says:

I always leave my battery in when home and AC is plugged in….I have seen several people ask about this – but still no answer?? I have been doing this for nearly a year and battery seems fine…Any thoughts?

89. James Yeang Says:

@luvmytiki: While not optimum… I don’t think it’s a huge problem given your convenience.

90. Sam Says:

Hi,

Thanks for the useful tips. Will work on these & conserve my laptop’s battery life.

91. e-laptop-battery Says:

Good, I will tell to my customer.

friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 17/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

92. Stu Says:

The people I know that never really use the laptop on battery, but always have it plugged in, after three plus years have batteries that work like they were brand new and have run times expected from a new battery. People like me, that use it on battery daily seem to be lucky to get a year out of a battery. It should be noted that I have seen some different refrences made in the above – and people need to watch the difference between lithium-ion and lithium polymer. Li poly from what I know is a really cheap battery, that I’ve only seen in really cheap bottom-of-market products (cell ph, pda, etc…) I’ve never seen one in a laptop. As far as power saving goes, I just got a new laptop with a Intel 965 chipset. I really suggest investing in a flash cache module for $20. (search google) (I got mine on Amazon) HP made waves by speaking against the great Intel when they said that they wouldn’t suggest it as the benefit wasn’t noticible. Unfortunately, what Intel and HP were going at was the amount of time it would take to start up the system, as the Intel driver loads a lot of those files to the flash cache module. What they didn’t make as a highlight (which is what I love most about it) is the BATTERY savings created by loading so much of the OS to a flash chip. Unfortuantely it only works with Vista. Not *nix, not XP. sorry. (I’m hoping for a linux driver soon, Intel’s usually good about those things especially integrated video drivers) But it’s not just the driver, Vista does a lot to make it work. Vista loads sections to the module, works with that module, and the bios uses the module to turn the standard hard drive practically into a hybrid hard drive. Result – my hard drive spins down and STAYS off. A common misnomer is that it is good for your hard drive to spin down. In my experience, it can never stay off for long, and is constantly spinning up and down. This is bad for the drive, not to mention kills the battery totally, cause the drive sucks a large amount of power to spin the platters up. You gotta go from 0 to ~5400RPM (avg) in about a second or so. That takes some power. I really notice with Vista and the 965 chipset there is some really good things going on to save power, and it seems to be working. (I am aware I am risking my neck for saying something positive about vista, but I think it’s true) I also apologize for not being able to provide more in-depth technical information about what’s moved back and forth to the flash cache module, exactly what is stored in it, etc… as I just got it, and it’s new tech, I don’t know the precise details yet. Forgot to mention: Flash cache is a card (mini-pci-express) that goes in one of your three (yes not two, but three now) mini-pci-x internal slots. It’s a 1GB flash card. It’s not designed for you to remove it, so unlike a thumb drive that if it’s not in when the computer boots it can’t load those sections of the OS, this thing is always present and always helps. It’s nice cause it doesn’t stick out or have to be attached like a thumb drive, and I still get to use my SD card slot for actual use, rather than cache. It only works with the Intel 965 chipset (and newer) and only works with Vista.

93. Stu Says:

Sorry I forgot a couple important words..

…so unlike a thumb drive that if it’s not in when the computer boots it can’t load those sections of the OS, (and has to revert to the hard drive canceling all the power saving and speed saving effects)

I certainly didn’t mean to insinuate that parts of the OS could not be loaded.

94. Replacement Laptop Battery Says:

Very simple. Your battery will last longer than your laptop. If you want it to last longer while using it, turn off all unnecessary programs and services. Otherwise don’t worry about it. If you want your laptop battery to last longer then you need to buy the extended life version. Cheaper in the the after- market than buying OEM.

95. notebook battery Says:

Good tips. I had a question about li-polymer batteries. I got one for my laptop from notebookbattery.com recently, but my quesion is that do I need to charge and discharge it just like li- ion batteries? is the technology similar?

Thanks for posting this article.

96. James Yeang Says: friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 18/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… Notebook battery commenter: Not too sure about li-polymer, but according to sources, it seems more friendly to constantly plug in…

“More resistant to overcharge; less chance for electrolyte leakage” – http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-5.htm

97. Anonymous Says:

I bought a sony vaio and spent so much but on vacation the I can use the computer only 1,5 hour not even watch a film:(

98. Momin Zaman Says:

I bought the hp dv 2530 ea yesterday and i wanted to ask that whenever its possible to plug the laptop should i do so?or should i disconnect it once its fully charged and then use it wirelessly?

99. James Yeang Says:

Momin Zaman: General consensus suggests unplugging, but you have to weigh that against any inconvenience which would stem from that.

100. Tim Says:

Batteries are very expensive so anything that helps you extend then is a great thing.

101. vicky Says:

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102. Frank Says:

Q: I have a battery that that won’t hold a charge and is now completly dead. I have used the plug-in power source and the computor still won’t stay on for more that a few seconds. Could that battery be the problem even in this case?

103. Anusha Says:

When at home, should the laptop be run on AC power or battery? Please advise.

104. Richard Says:

Frank, try running it without the battery inserted, on plug-in AC power. friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 19/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… If it still fails to run, then something beyond the battery is clearly broken.

105. Richard Says:

Anusha and others, the “technical optimum” is to charge the battery around halfway, then pull out the battery, put it in the in a plastic bag in the fridge, and use your laptop on AC power without the battery…. Now that clearly isn’t very practical. Especially since when you want to go on the road with your laptop, the battery is half-flat so you need to charge it up first. So in practice most ppl. will leave the battery in, and run on AC power, to avid draining the battery completely. It’s much better to charge often, than to run it down often. It doesn’t like it when you squeeze out that last 2% of charge.

That said, the most important thing is to keep the battery from getting too warm. The biggest no-no, is to use the laptop on a pillow in you bed. Place it on a tray or some-such, so there is adequate ventil around it. If it always runs very hot, then your might actually consider removing the battery and running on AC alone. The rest of the computer is less susceptible to heat.

106. Jan Torleif Says:

Greetings,

I have read though this extensive blog and have found some help – but Is anybody aware of some scientific literature on the benifits of charge/discharge cycling ?

….and secondly is anybody aware of the existence of battery exercise programs ? ( for linux ofcourse…)

Regards — Jan

107. Andrew Pollack Says:

@Jan – I’ve been marginally keeping an eye on this thread but not responding to mostly repeat questions until yours.

A battery exercise program is not a good idea for most current batteries. Those programs are useful for older rechargeable batteries which had a “memory” effect and would wear out due to short charge/discharge cycles. Today’s batteries – particular Lithium based batteries wear out based on an essential total limit on the number of times they can be recharged as well has the total time they are actually holding a full charge. In those batteries, an exercise program would wear them out faster.

What I would like to see is an option in the laptops to tell the machine you plan to use them mostly in a powered on state, and to keep the battery between 40 and 60 percent full rather than fully recharging it all the time. As I understand the technology, this would be MUCH healthier for the Lithium based batteries. Those batteries recommend long term storage at 40% rather than either full or empty. Apparently storing them at 100% increases stress on some aspect of the way they work.

108. Jan Torleif Says:

Thanks Andrew for the swift reply – that was really useful. Do you know what the physical process behind the wear in Li-Ion batteries is. Is it a purely electrochemical wear or buildup ? – In the old batteries the source of the wear is oxide crystal build-up on the anode. This meant that the older type batteries (Ni-based) could be revived by short circuiting the battery with repeated short bursts of high voltage using a capacitor. This will dissolve the crystaline oxide at the anode.

The regiment you are suggesting should be easy to build into APMd or ACPId program.

Jan

109. Andrew Pollack Says: friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 20/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

@Jan – No. I don’t know the chemistry well enough to give you an answer, however I can tell you this:

The high energy density of a lithium based batter combined with chemistry of its storage makes them highly unstable. There are actually a lot of sophisticated electronics inside the battery backs to prevent them from rapidly discharging. Failure of these checks leads to a runaway discharge and has caused fires where there have been defects in the electronics.

In short – I’d really, really, really avoid messing with one. In older battery packs, you could remove and replace bad cells if you were good with a soldering iron. In Lithium batteries I think they’re much safer left alone.

As a firefighter, the idea of seeing Toyota and others moving to Lithium batteries for their cars is very scary — although I understand that the Lithium Polymer ones are MUCH safer than the Lithium Ion ones. Personally, I haven’t studied them enough to tell you what the difference is.

110. ComputerVideos Says:

Hi there,

Thank you so much for such a great article. I like every bit of it. I am a big fan of PC hibernate mode. It resumes faster and there is not much load on your PC.

:o)

Aftab

111. Jan Torleif Says:

Hi Andrew,

Well I understand the reason for going to Lithium in cars – the environmental arguments are really strong. Both from the production, disposal and duarability point of view. The Li (especially polymer) batteries are lighter and thus less fossil fule has to be used carrying them around in cars.

I understand your concers about the Li-Ion batteries, checkout the following youtubage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pizFsY0yjss

Regards

Jan

112. Sally Says:

Hi.

May I know how long a 4400mAh battery can last?

Thanks.

113. Jan Torleif Says:

Sally,

What do you mean ?

Jan

114. Sally Says:

Well, is it 1, 2, or more hours? I mean the laptop where the (new) battery belongs to, :p Sorry… friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 21/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

115. Joris Says:

I’ve got one question:

Most of the time, I use my labtop sitting at my desk, so I have the possibility to keep it plugged in all the time.

Is this recommended? Or does “all-time-loading” damage the battery?

And is is useful to discharge the battery every two weeks or so?

And while charging, is it better to keep the labtop untouched, so that I do not drain energy while loading it up?

Thanks for your answers :-)

Joris

116. Rita Says:

ok so if I use my laptop plugged in should I take the battery out?

117. Anonymous Says:

laptop batteries typically last about a year or 2 if your lucky, those tips are mainly for keeping your hard drive or o.s. from becoming corrupt.

the batteries gonna die no matter what-lol

118. Michael Says:

If you are near a power socket then remove the battery and plug it in! Save your battery for when you are not near a power supply silly.

119. Hello Says:

I just asked about my laptop battery i bought a new battery for the first time i have to just charge the full battery or i will charge it for long time..

120. Sarah Codes Says:

When I use my laptops via the mains does the battery need to be removed?

121. L Says:

I just replaced my laptop battery. I charged it up and let it run completely down. Now it won’t charge up again. It has been “charging” for hours and is still on 0. Any suggestions?

122. M Says:

SO you’re not suppose to let Li-ion batteries completely discharge… so you charge it, use it half way & then recharge it? I always heard that that was bad for battery life (maybe not Li-ion batteries – I have no idea).

my battery was working well for a year & a half. then the last few months I have needed my computer on constantly… I guess that causes it to overheat & decreases battery life? it used to run at 3-4 hours… now it’s only down to 1… in a matter of 2-3 months!! help! it’s frustrating. is there any way to increase the battery life once it’s gone down so much???? friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 22/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

123. Silent.Killer Says:

my battery life sucks it turn off in less than 10 minutes WHY?????????

124. cloud9ine Says:

“lil_jimmy : #5, more RAM takes more energy to run. It’s not always more efficent to add more. If your computer isn’t using the page file much as it is, then it would probably be a waste (as far as efficency goes) to add more RAM. Ram uses about 15W of power per GB.”

Jimmy, I don’t know where you get those numbers, but they are wrong. I have my T60 running at 16W total, with 4 GB RAM. With your numbers, I should be at 60 W plus whatever the rest of the computer uses.

125. cloud9ine Says:

Also, with ref to selective charging, Lenovo’s battery manager lets you pick what level to start charging at, and what level to stop.

What is recommended for computers that you use plugges in, is to discharge once a month.

126. cloud9ine Says:

Also, to note, I don’t know what I am doing right, but my battery, after 1.5 years, can still store 74 Wh. When I bought it, it was at 84.24Wh. Just 88% deterioration.

127. network admin Says:

Important for a longer battery life!!!

When you first buy a laptop, use it untill the battery goes fully flat, then fully charge it about 5 times, it will give you about 1hr of extra battery life

128. Terry Says:

That has always been the one annoying thing about laptops, is the battery life. Thanks for the tips, I can actually go a little bit longer before my laptop switches itself off.

129. Ali Says:

is it ok to have my laptop battery uncharged or there is a chance of battery getting dead i havent charged my laptop for 2 months

130. Keith Rider Says:

You don’t need to use a surge protector with a laptop – unless you are in a third world country with a very dodgy mains supply.

Most laptop PSU/charger are designed to operate from 110 to 240 volts, and any surges will be taken care of by the psu and the laptop battery. That is, unless you get a lighting strike, and that will take out just about everything.

The makes of surge protectors are making lots of money, selling items that are not really needed.

131. Chad baldwin Says:

heres some other good things: friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 23/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… 1) turn off wireless(if your not using it) 2) disable any unused hardware in the hardware manager ex: infrared, ethernet card(i never use it), firewire, webcam, cd drive(i only turn it on to install stuff) 3) turn off your speakers 4) if you use a mouse, turn off the touchpad 5) use a blank background (black uses least amount of energy for the LCD) 6) if running Vista use readyboost, it reduces hard drive use, if you have a built in SD card reader and a spare SD card thats even better than using a USB flash drive. 7) check your task manager to see how much of the CPU your using, if its barely anything then turn the power on that down 8) turn off services that don’t need to be running (error reporting)

132. ????? Says:

wow,this is good artcle for me.my battery is used very quickly.

133. Khalil Says:

I agree very useful info, thanks… I might wanna add buying double battery it might be very useful when u get double the work done with one charge.. also getting a smaller screen laptop might do a trick ;)

134. Khalil Says:

I might also want to point out that using internet explorer might have an impact on battery life caused by the deference between it & others when it comes to memory & hard disk usage!

135. ghallab dev Says:

Thanks this tips are very usefull .

136. ghallab dev Says:

One more thing i think it affect battery life is to decrease screan sharpness . if you are using acer laptops you may decrease you cpu speed to meduim to high or maxmun according to your need .

137. dab Says:

Oh yeah, just to add, keep the volume to minimum rather than full blast as that will save some power too as well as screen brightness, or even going for the ‘high contrast’ option for windows desktop properties.

138. jarry Says:

I agree very useful info, thanks… I might wanna add buying double battery it might be very useful when u get double the work done with one charge.. also getting a smaller screen laptop might do a trick ;)

139. Deb Says:

I can’t figure out why my laptop battery only will last 5 minutes now. It has been a few years since I bought it but it may be the fact it gets quite hot. Thank you for an informative and in-depth article.

Deb

140. Anonymous Says:

lol, i was searching for physics help but i cam eonto this. il help, i got an hp pavilion and even though its almost brand new it also over heats. it might be becuase friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 24/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… ur battery is damaged or has leaked. this happens to i pods 2, they last for a really short time once they get old.

id suggest that u get a new battery and use all the tips and especially exercise it. not only on ur laptop but on everything that has a run-out battery.

hope that helps. ^_^

141. Siddarth Says:

Hey i’ve a question… Will my lap battery be used if i am connected to main power supply??? Or shud i remove the batteries in order to get better battery life??

142. Most Energy Saving TVs Says:

The Vizio GV52LF HDTV is very energy efficient, only 0.63 watts when left on standby

143. Siddarth Says:

Hey can anybody help me out!!!?

144. James Yeang Says:

@Siddarth: Half-charge is the best state to leave your batteries in. Remove it if you must to preserve it, but consider the inconvenience involved..

145. Siddarth Says:

@James Thanx for responding.. Yeah but does it mean that my Batteries will be used when i am using AC power.. Acer people said that my batteries remain passive when plugged to AC and so i have my batteries in full charge!!

146. James Yeang Says:

@Siddarth: I think Acer folks are right, but I would think only after the charge is full…

147. betty Says:

I can’t figure out why my laptop battery only will last 5 minutes now. It has been a few years since I bought it but it may be the fact it gets quite hot. Thank you for an informative and in-depth article.

148. Bob Says:

Only got a year out of my Toshiba A100 6 cell battery with intermittent use. Never took it out of my Laptop and mostly used AC power. 1 year seems pretty pathetic to me.

149. NaturalSelection Says:

I just purchased a replacement battery for my Sony Vaio laptop.

Here are the battery manufacturers’ usage tips on the box:

1. Fully charge new battery packs before use

2. New battery pack needs to be circulated (fully discharged, then recharged) 3-5 times to reach its optimal performance friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 25/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… 3. Battery will self-discharge when not in use. Store in fully charged status in cool, dry place.

4. Fully discharge and recharge at least once a month.

150. NaturalSelection Says:

I would like to add that it is wise to remove the battery from the laptop when using AC power. This will extend your battery’s life enormously.

151. ruby ann Says:

good tips.. keep it up.. i used this method to improve my work attitude

152. ruby ann Says:

Battery life extension.. try this

153. Jack Smith Says:

Very useful tips to maintain your laptop battery. Also i think away from high temperature and ventilated environment the best.

154. NIKON EN-EL3 Says:

I want to keep my battery going for as long as possible,thanks for help

155. NIKON EN-EL3 Says:

it is a good idea…

156. NIKONEN-EL3 Says:

good idea

157. discount batteries Says:

Yes , all you say are right but you miss other factors, such as : 1. New laptop batteries are shipped in a discharged condition and must be charged before use. We generally recommend an overnight charge (approximately twelve hours). Refer to the user’s manual for charging instructions. Rechargeable batteries should be cycled – fully charged and then fully discharged – two to four times initially to allow them to reach their full capacity. Try to avoid frequent full discharging of the laptop battery. It is normal to get warm when charging or normal use the laptopbattery. If it is getting too hot, there may be a problem with the device and qualified personnel should check it. If you don’t plan on using the replacement inspiron 1501 dell battery for a month or more, we recommend storing it in a clean, dry, cool place away from heat and metal objects. To get maximum performance from the battery, fully optimize the notebooks power management features prior to use. Power management is a trade off: better power conservation in exchange for lesser computer performance. The power management system conserves battery power by setting the processor to run at a slower speed, dimming the screen, spinning down the hard drive when it’s not in use and causing the machine to go into sleep mode when inactive. The notebook users guide will provide information relating to specific power management features.

158. ryan Says:

one thing i must say to all of you trying to get more battery life look into buying an external li-ion laptop battery of around 90-133 watt hours i was able to run crysis on its highest stable settings for 3 hours on the external power alone, !with powersaving off! using a hp dv5-1045tx. there pricy around $200 friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 26/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… australian for the 133 watt hour but when you have 13 hour battery life when powersavings on whos complaining.

(2.26 Ghz dual core, 2 GB of ddr2 ram, 17 inch screen and a 9600gm graphics card)

159. TOSHIBA PA3383U-1BRS Says:

thanks for your aticle,it’s nice

160. tonlia Says:

“Set up and optimize your power options – Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect). “

161. tonlia Says:

Set up and optimize your power options – Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect).

so that the pro, so inthe moments, just say to say a long long way to tesch

162. yakada Says:

” Keep the battery contacts clean: Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient. ” efficationally, in specilize way, int all methods to change all the brands

163. jaon Says:

Good article, very useful

164. Yo Says:

Yo,

Nice TIP’s .. . All Of What I Knew ! Most Powersaving Software do this Anyway ;)

Keep up the Great Work ! ^_^

165. koronis Says:

Even though this post is several years old it is still full of good tips that are still current. Good job!

166. James Says:

When I use my laptops via the mains does the battery need to be removed?

167. James Says:

Good article,i love it.

168. Johns Says: friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 27/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… It is a good idea…

169. Machael Says:

Is it ok to have my laptop battery uncharged or there is a chance of battery getting dead?

I haven’t charged my notebook for 3 months.

170. Dylan Says:

You can also use solid state disks instead of hard disk drives. they are mutch faster than the hdd’s and use mutch less power.

171. xiaofeng Says:

TKS, there are more battery tips in notebook-batteries.org http://www.notebook-batteries.org/tips.php

172. theo Says:

but what can i do, i just have the best batteries. But i have no good ways to saler them..

173. itsvattery Says:

but how do i got my battery shopping online?

174. D. Lund Says:

Is it true that it is bad for laptop batteries to keep the laptop plugged in all the time?

175. Anthony@hotmail Says:

hey guys.. thanks a ton for all these pointers n tips.. took me almost an hr. readin it from end to end.. but definitely worth it.. i use my wifi a lot.. (leave it enabled.. most of the times..).. disabling it when not required gave me a batt boost of at least 40-50%. I use an ASUS 8in eePC with a six cell batt. Thanks guys..!!!

176. Chris Says:

NO… no no no no no! These tips aren’t bad but they often cause more problems than the single one they fix… NEVER HIBERNATE!!! It screws up systems more than you can imagine!!! Always standby and if you are going to leave it out of use for a long while (4-5 hours) then a shutdown is better… but NEVER HIBERNATE! The resolution lowering affects desktop icon placement, anyone with a truly personal PC has a huge load of problems when their icons are rearranged; it becomes impossible to find everything and annoying to have to remember where everything was. Most of the other tips are common sense, but duly noted. Anyway that’s my piece, good luck to you all with your battery issues!

177. Keith Rider Says:

If your battery apears to completly die, take it out and leave it for a while. A new battery that I had, when I completly ran it down, it died. After a few weeks ‘rest’ it recovered, was charged up and worked OK.

It still works, unless I run it right down, and the s ame thing happens. friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 28/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

178. battery Says:

nice

Battery Maintenance and User Instructions

A new battery usually maintains a discharged condition with very low capacity. It is highly recommended to fully charge new battery packs before using. You can refer to the users’ guide of your electronic device for charging instructions. A new battery pack needs to be circled (fully discharged and recharged) three to five times to reach its optimum performance. Rechargeable battery will undergo self-discharging when left unused for a long period of time. Thus, it should always be stored in a fully charged state and kept in a cool, dry and clean place. To maintain the optimum performance of a battery pack, it is highly recommended to circle (fully discharging and recharging) it at least once a month. It is normal if a new battery gets warm when being charged or used. However, please pay special attention if the battery pack becomes excessively hot. This may indicate there is a problem with the charging circuit of the electronic device. Please consult a qualified technician if necessary. New batteries are hard to be charged. Sometimes, your electronic device may indicate a fully charged condition about 10 to 15 minutes when the new battery pack is being charged for the first time. When this happens, remove the battery pack and let it cool down for about 10 to 15 minutes then repeat the charging procedure. Sometimes, a new battery will suddenly refuse to be charged. If this happens, a suggested solution is trying to remove the battery from the device and insert it again.

179. Jasper Says:

Hi,

Is it safe if I unplugged the power adaptor from the AC outlet and use the battery source and when the battery is running out I’ll re-plugged again the power adaptor. Just like charging a cellular phone.

Thanks, Jasper

180. discountbattery Says:

In addition to the above these,Purchased for the new battery must be fully activated.So that you can Full activation of its chemical composition,increase battery life.

181. Marian Says:

To really save battery life you need to have very low consumption. The solutions are as follows: Intel Atom (one core) 2,5 W Via Nano (one core, in 2010 two core) 5 W Graphic cards that report under 10 W on http://www.notebookcheck.com And last – Aleutia PC, if you really want two days of battery life on a six cell li-ion battery (and no youtube performance…)

182. Manu Says:

Great post, thanks

I’ve a small application that turns off the monitor quickly to save a few watts when you dont need the display.

you can get it from here

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Launchers-Shutdown-Tools/m-off.shtml

183. battery Says: friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 29/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… I think you need a high capacity battery for your laptop, exaple ,8700mah(85wh) battery for sony VAIO TZ Series http://www.cheap-laptop-batteries.com/laptop-battery/sony%20vgp-bps11.htm High capacity can last about 4 hours, whoever 5800m battery can be used only 2 hours

184. John smith Says:

Great Posts, I like your posts and have followed your blog.thanks

185. laptop battery manufacturer Says:

Load The Burning Crusade on your laptop and take it for a swing at Starbucks, and you’d end up with a burnt battery.

186. Anza Says:

I love to find more informative information here. I’ll try your recommend with my laptop. Thanks for the sharing

187. DJ Says:

Also, another tip is to turn off your wireless card when it is not needed. It eats up quite a bit of power, looking for and staying connected to wireless internet.

188. Laptop battery manufacturer Says:

Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life

189. JustPassingBy Says:

“12. Don’t multitask ” are you kidding me? other than that i agree with the other ways.

190. Jared Says:

does this mean that once i charge it, after two weeks, drain the battery?

191. Mehedi Hasan Says:

WOW!! nice tips.. thanks for share :D

Mehedi

192. Insomnia Says:

What’s everyones opinion on your laptops company manufactured battery vs ones made for your brand, but arent made by that company. Also, are universal AC adapters more harm than good? After my original AC adapter wire broke, I bought a belkin universal ac adapter that came with different tips, and I think it damaged my battery. Now I have one that I bought at buy.com that is specifically made for my model and it seems to be working fine (…well, I had to use the warranty after 2-3 months, but I believe it was my own fault for letting it get tugged on and stuff). I’m thinking of buying a new laptop battery at buy.com for my Hp Pavilion Dv6500, so I’m wondering if that’s a good idea? It’s way cheaper than that laughable price on the HP site.

193. Emad Says: friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 30/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… I use PC for long time but I’m a new user for laptop. Can I suggest to clearly separate the tips into two groups each of interest?! First : tips to extend the the hours of baterry operation after being charged. Second: tips to extend the life-span of the baterry in months or even years as it supposed to be. I hope that you will agree with me and let us share you your experience.

194. Jeff Says:

We often keep the power cord plugged in while using our laptop at home (regardless of remaining life). Will this ruin the battery? Even when 100pct charged, we’re down to 30 minutes or so.

195. superbattery Says:

when the computer is on,we should cut off the electric power,this may extend the life of battery,also the up is very useful to extend the battery life

196. Anonymous Says:

Laptop battery is really big issue for me until now. I really feel that I have to use it follow these tips. Thanks!

197. Suman Chowdhury Says:

Hi i am SUMAN a student of comp engineering with a ACER ASPIRE 5920 laptop with li-on battery i am a bit confuse about using continuous mains power supply and discharging it on the same upto 40% which is better as li-on battery do not have memory and after 100% battery it works on power supply so which will be better,; to use laptop in continuous mains supply or to discharge upto 40% thanking you for your kind act of kindness for giving time in answering my question my email is [email protected] waiting for ur reply very eagerly

198. laptops battery Says:

Very useful tips,Thanks for share~

199. battery Says:

thanks for the tips,I think full charge/discharge is most important for the battery.

http://www.laptop-battery-replacement.co.uk

200. Notebook Test Says:

Thanks for this article, it is very informative for users.

201. Pyrorian Says:

Configure your browser not to run Adobe Flash plugin automatically. Firefox and developer version of Chrome will allow you this via extensions. Most flash is used either for displaying adds or functionality you don’t need (such as setting a permanent flash based cookie). Flash content/adds require more processor power so it makes sense to only use it when you need to when on battery power.

202. brista Says:

So, basically stop doing anything on your laptop and just stare at it instead? Yep, you’ll definitely have a long battery life that way… friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 31/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

203. Cheap Laptop Batteries Says:

regularly calibrating your laptop really helps – once a month or so makes the laptop battery hold its charge much better.

204. Jack Says:

Great article, all of these tips are useful to reduce the laptop working rate and improving the battery working time.

205. Laptop Battery Fuel Says:

I am very surprised that number 1 is not

1. Remove your battery when you are plugged in. Your laptop battery is constantly charging and discharging when you are plugged in. This will slowly drain the ability of your battery to hold a longer charge. It may be a little inconvenient, but it is small thing you can that will save you money in the long run.

P.S. Also – I’d recommend NOT turning off the auto save as suggested. What you gain in minutes you will lose in your sanity when you have lost hours worth of work.

Patrick LaptopBatteryFuel.com

206. Sv Says:

Turning off the WiFi and Bluetooth could be useful too.

207. john Says:

Good tips, but my laptop battery had broken, I will follow this when I buy a new battery, thanks.

208. battery Says:

Can we ever make any high capacity battery that we’ll never have to worry about it?

209. batteries Says:

Indeed good tips, thanks for the good guide.

210. Olivia smith Says:

I would also like to know how much more battery life will I get out all of this. I can see some of the features might train the battery. Thanks for the tips.

211. iMezied Says:

Very useful tips and important thanx

212. angelina Says:

2. Dim your screen – Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice. friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 32/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

I use this idea usually!

213. olivia smith Says:

excellent camera, but battery life is pathetic, the price of the unit. Can anyone tell me how to extend battery life? It has a USB cable can be used free of charge, phone and laptop? … Or a portable battery charger and AC power?

214. battery company Says:

ACER Laptop Battery Care and maintenance:

1. Your ACER Laptop Battery is a product of superior design and craftsmanship and should be carefully treated.The suggestions below will help you protect your warranty coverage. 2. Do not use or store the Laptop Battery in dusty,dirty areas.its moving parts and electronic components can be damaged. 3. Do not store the ACER Laptop Battery in hot areas. High temperatures candamage batteries. 4. Do not store the Laptop Battery in cold areas. When the battery returns to its normal temperature, moisture can form inside the ACER Laptop Battery and damage electronic circuit boards. 5. Do not attempt to open the adapter or charger unless as instructed in this guide. 6. Do not drop, knock, or shake the battery. Rough handling can break internal circuit boards and fine mechanics. 7. Use chargers indoors. 8. Do not use harsh chemicals, cleaning solvents, or strong detegents to clean the ACER Laptop Battery.

215. Sara Says:

Should you turn you laptop off to charge it or does it charge better on?

216. Farrukh Says:

IMPORTANT TIP# Heavey Games which have 2GB Memory or more have bad affect on laptop battery so avoid to play these games on laptops.Because I have lost my HP6910p Laptop Li-On Battey Power.

217. battery company Says:

How long will the new main battery power the laptop? Battery run-time on a laptop is difficult to determine. Actual battery running time depends upon the power demands made by the equipment. The use of the screen, the hard drive and other accessories results in an additional drain upon the battery, effectively reducing its running time. The total run-time of the battery is also dependent upon the design of the equipment. Generally, a new Hi-Capacity battery will run 30% to 50% longer than the old battery did when it was new. http://www.ebattery.com.au/about/tips.php

218. UK Laptop Battery Says:

It is normal to get warm when charging or normal use the laptopbattery. If it is getting too hot, there may be a problem with the device and qualified personnel should check it.

219. Batteries Supplier Says:

It is a good article, which could help us protect our laptop batteries.

220. Ravi pratap singh Says: friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 33/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… i have get infromation which is essential to save battery life.

thanks alot for ur information.

and one thing i want to add that’s always try to run ur laptop on AC power . try to minimize the use of battery o/p. it will definetly incerese life of battery.

221. laptops accessories Says:

~er~ I have bookmark the article

hope it can give me some help

222. Jim Says:

Cool.

223. John Says:

That’s nice, but I also use “smart brightness controller”… this is a dimmer of a PC.. if you configure it correctly, it will really help… http://brightek-soft.com/smartbright

224. ggg Says:

you can use linux. just give a try ;)

225. ravinder Says:

labtop using while charging is good. if i am doing a work plug in charging is good or not

226. Deafspeedy Says:

one thing. how save ur batteries life to make sure 2nd LCD/CRT monitor disconnect with ur laptop if u want 2nd Monitor. then u have to keep power on while 2nd monitor connected with ur laptop.

so dont let 2nd monitor steal ur battery’a life quicky

227. andreas Says:

My battery from a Dell Studio 1555 when totally bad the last few months. In the beginning I could have 3,5 hours of kinda working / browsing one a single charge. After a while it get’s a little less but overall still quite good. But since January it got worse when I could get only 2 hours of a charge (if it was my lucky day). I had the laptop for only 6 months at that time so last week I sent an email to Dell with explaining this isn’t normal (site stated a battery should last for at least 18 months) and a request for a new one.

Got him the day before yesterday and I’m very happy with it, but I’m afraid I’ll have to get a new one in about 8 months if the previous battery was a good one.

228. 402018-001 Says:

[...] 翻译自： Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life [...]

229. mahendra Says:

hi friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 34/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B… thanks for the article,, it was very useful

230. Chakyl Says:

as soon as the battery gets fully charged remove the battery and keep it somewhere safe maybe on the laptop bage. :)

231. Peter Says:

these tips have helped to me. Because my laptop battery usually lasts not longer.

232. battery-center.net Says:

that’s good?

233. battery-center.net Says:

that’s good?

234. cheap battery Says:

Yes, but it depend on the battery used times?

235. Mubarak Says:

Hi,I want to know why my laptop now fails to hibernate and how I can correct this problem. Well just as an addition,I just noticed the hibernation icon in the menu list suddenly became inactive.

236. jaguar6cy Says:

1. “Cut down on programs running in the background”? What programs are essential? 2. “Do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge”? What is the best minimum level to maintain?

237. Rex Dalagan Says:

I would like to ask is leaving the charger on regularly on a laptop with li-ion battery, will it damaged the battery?

I need expert advise on this please thank you.

238. Peter0254 Says:

very useful tips, thanks for your articles.

239. digbattery Says:

Yes, i agree your idea. and will try it by your tips.

240. teresa Says:

http://www.wholesaleeshop.com.au/MP5/ is good.

241. amy Says: friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 35/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

this is a nice article and very helpful but i just got one question in mind. Does it really destroys the battery when ur still charging it even though its already full? Cause everytime i use my laptop(Compaq),i usually plug it. Is it necessary to discharge the batteries once a week??

242. Bob Says:

http://www.battery-retail.com Goog article.

243. supercool Says:

laptop battery will not charge,I have a Dell Inspiron laptop. Right now I am able to run the laptop off a/c power through the power adaptor. The battery will not charge at all. Does anyone have any idea as to what is causing this? Should I invest in a new power adaptor? All our dell laptop battery are manufactured by state-of-the-art manufacturing plants. Our dell Inspiron 6400 battery are guaranteed to meet or exceed the original equipment’s specifications on all counts of durability, structure and fit. To add to it, our dell Inspiron 6000 battery are backed by a 30-Day Money Back Guarantee and a full 1-year free replacement warranty for any form of manufacturing defects.

244. laptops battery Says:

Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks.

245. anny Says:

These tips are good for me. Thanks so much for this site

246. Akash Says:

This tips are not that much useful because . you should give tips how to charge battery without laptop or how to charge battery without any source or any device to increase capacity of the battery or cadmium nickle battery or something like that . Because if I am not using autosave option not using this not using that then obviously its saves power then why I purchase laptop if I cant work multitask then why should I paid for 64 bit OS or why I should pay for good configuration. By decreasing usage of laptop is not a proper solutions . Please find something new like some battery with different material that can work at least 50 hrs continue with high graphics with all fully usage. Try to find out .. I m waiting for your reply

247. liyang Says:

The most popular trend in 2010 http://www.udtek.com/dell_Laptop-Battery_csf_1_2a_41.html

248. kapil Says:

HI all, I am using linux with booting from the usb stick for two reasons fisrt it doesn’t load unnecessary services, second saves battery required by hard disk. it gives me twice the battery backup than windows. if you plan to use linux choose lighter distribution such as (puppy, slitaz, gentoo). for more information please contact on my email ([email protected])

249. borsa Says:

thanks ferhat a.q

friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 36/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

250. muaz Says:

I m buy new laptop few days ago …….I am satisfy with there performance …….but reading your laptop battery save tips ….I ma more conscious. thanks

251. ha Says:

my main tip is just switch off wifi and bluetooth when not in use

252. mary Says:

Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life via Lifehacker

253. prem Says:

if i plug in my laptop whether it will use battery or current

254. niki Says:

well mine is a energy sucker doenst stay charged for long

255. Viren Says:

i got half n hour of extra battery by just muting my laptop speakers..amazing..try it.

256. shiny girl Says:

thanks guys, this is helpful! I’ve just bought a new battery for my gateway laptop… but my boyfriend said to me not to stay too long there… should use his energy instead…. ;-)

257. pranav Says:

HY ..THANKS FOR THE SUGGESTIONS WHICH YOU GAVE ……..I HAVE LENOVO Y510….ABOUT AN YEAR OLD……I AM FASING A VERY GRAVE PROBLEM WITH MY BATTERY …LATELY….TILL LAST MONTH IT USED TO GIVE ME 2 TO 3 HRS……AND BUT SUDDENLY IN THIS MONTH I EXPERIENCED THAT IT IS GIVING ONLY 30 TO 40 MINUTES AT THE MOST……I CHECKED MY BATTERY WEAR LEVEL .AND IT STATES 70%…………PLEASE RECOMEND WHAT SHOULD I DO…..REGARDS..

258. laptops batteries Says:

well done boy,thanks

259. Allen Says:

I am preparing on writing a college essay on this subject, can i use some excerpts from perfect here?

260. ifeadi Says:

thanks 4 the advice but my laptop battery just goes off after using 50% of the charge

friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 37/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

261. batteryer Says:

Thanks for sharing. is the answer for several reasons:

1. Now all notebook power control circuit design of this feature: When the Dell Latitude E6400 battery is 90% (such as HP’s most models), or 95% will be charged, but to achieve this through natural discharge capacity of a time for 2 weeks months, I would say the following when the battery is about to be idle for a month to maintain the battery fully charge and discharge capacity, this time you should be concerned about is the Dell Latitude E6400 battery little bit of exercise instead of being idle again after the charge;

2. Even if the battery “unfortunate” was once again charged, bringing the loss will not result than long battery power without a large decline in the number.

3. Your data than you or your Laptop batteries are much rarer, a sudden power failure has not only hurt your notebook, which can not restore the data, and it is no time for regret. Fore more information: http://www.batteryer.co.uk/blog/

262. Mambo Jambo Says:

It’s just a freakin’ battery… Jesus crist!

263. dell inspiron n5010 Says:

hey pals…. pls suggest me on this which one is the effecient way of extending battery’s life? 1.using laptop directly by AC current source without disconnecting even though its fully charged. Or 2.charging the battery to 100% and disconnecting the power source until it shows low battery WARNING.that is using laptop on the battery’s power and again charging it when it shows warning.

pls suggest me.

264. laptopbatteryretail.com Says:

Thank you? http://www.laptopbatteryretail.com/sony-vgp-bps12-battery.htm

265. tovi Says:

exelent article !

266. paul Says:

very good review.study it.

267. Ishola Dhikrulahi Olalekan Says:

Sir, please i will be needing some computer update.

268. Ishola Dhikrulahi Olalekan Says:

Sir, please i will be needing some computer update. Thanks for your Understanding friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-y… 38/50 22/10/2010 Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s B…

269. Elias Says:

What is the best way for the battery to last longer, to let the battery power drain every time using the computer or plug in the AC Power cord when using the Laptop PC? How does compare to a cellphone?

270. mickeyli Says:

Fran, unless you’re metering between the laptop and the power brick, or better between the battery and the system board, you’re not likely to see a difference.

The power brick probably tosses off more energy as waste heat than the difference from the additional ram. I’d be surprised if you saw much difference in draw when sitting idle vs. using your hard disk extensively if you’re just looking at the wall socket side for consumption http://theblogs.net/mickeyli/

271. ravi Says:

wow a nice information bout how 2 increase d battery life………..i sure i will able 2 save my lappy battery life

272. battery Wholsale Says:

If u didnt travel, just use at house, then is better to take the battery out and use AC instead. But have to be caution of lighting strike or voltage spike… If possible get another surge protector when u want to use AC power…Is there a way that we need to press some key combination to get the display back on? I hook it up with a big external LCD and work on the LCD, but the lappy display is still on. So I want the display keep off even I am typing, moving mouse, etc. Thanks

273. mrdon Says:

Very good tips.I will apply these techniques now.Thanks.

274. srinivas Says:

good tips..thanks..:)

275. Amy Says:

hiya,nice aritcles, it is very usefull…thanks a lot!you guys may like this site(http://www.battery- mag.co.uk/blog/), too. have a nice day!

276. battery4us Says:

some other tips you may read at http://www.battery4us.com/blog

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