Helpful Tips to Get More Battery Life from Your Laptop
Has your laptop ever gone off on you while working on an important project? Worse still, you can’t remember if you saved it or not. Yes, a weak laptop battery is one of the most annoying issues plaguing laptop users.
As with most devices, your laptop degrades with time. You have between 2 – 4 years before your battery starts acting out. Before that time comes, you’ll want to do all you can to get the most from your battery. So, to help you with that, here are some simple tips to extend your laptop’s battery life.
7 Useful Tips That Can Get You More Battery Life from Your Laptop
- Use a different power-saver option.
Most people aren’t aware of their laptop’s power management system, but if you want to get more from your battery, you’ll need to change that. For Windows users, you can find it in Power Options.
For macOS, go to Energy Saver, then System Preferences. Once there, you can tweak it till you are satisfied with your battery performance.
Once you change your power settings, you’ll notice a significant impact on the laptop’s performance. If you’re using a balanced power setting, then expect slower processing speeds and lower brightness to save battery. On the flip side, using a high-performance setting gives you full processing power and turns your brightness to the highest level. It’s usually better to use this setting when on AC power.
- Use battery maintenance tools
This tool is mainly dependent on the laptop’s manufacturer. Some manufacturers include maintenance equipment for your laptop’s battery when you purchase their products.
These tools make recommendations that’ll help extend your battery life, and some even inform you on how long you should leave your battery plugged in and how much drain it can allow.
- Use utility programs like battery monitors.
Certain utility apps can help you monitor and extend your battery life. The best thing about these programs is that they work on any device regardless of the manufacturer.
The BatteryDiag and Battery Health are excellent battery monitoring programs if you own a Mac. In comparison, Windows users can try out BatteryBar and BatteryCare. These tools don’t replace or interfere with the battery operations on your laptop, and they only allow you to maintain and monitor your battery more closely.
- Always tone down the brightness.
Your screen brightness can drain the battery rapidly too. So, if your battery is running low, you can cut off the excess power to the screen by reducing the brightness. The key is to set it at a level that’s not too low to affect your eyes but not too high to drain your battery. Fun fact: lowering the brightness also reduces the strain your laptop puts on your eyes.
You can even turn off adaptive brightness and manually adjust the system. But don’t expect significant changes like an extra hour or something. While it will temporarily stop the drainage, it doesn’t solve the overall problem.
- Don’t keep your laptop plugged in.
You should avoid plugging in your laptop to AC power at all times. Users that constantly plug in their computer have fewer battery cycles (a cycle is the time it takes your battery to drain completely and recharge till full) than those who allow the battery level to fluctuate between 20% and 80%.
Try to ignore the need to charge your battery till full; it isn’t necessary. You can keep your laptop plugged in and not worry if it comes with a smart charging mode since it heavily considers battery health.
- Kill power-draining apps and processes
Another great technique to extend the life of your battery is to use this strategy. Windows has a lot of power-hungry programs and processes. As a result, turning them off or deactivating the apps you don’t use will improve battery life.
Some apps use up your battery life by running in the background. Disable them in Task Manager. It’s an old trick, but it works every time.
Wouldn’t you hate it if you discovered that your battery life has been draining quicker than a rabbit because you forgot to close Skype or a torrent app?
- Turn off Your Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth if you’re not using them. Because both radios draw power from the battery, switching them off is best. Disabling Wi-Fi on most laptops is as simple as pressing a button or pressing a key combination, but you need to do more to disable Bluetooth.
It’s easy to disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in Windows 10 by opening the Action Center and clicking the Bluetooth icons.
Conclusion
There you have seven helpful tips to give you more from your battery. Keep in mind that your laptop may have grown old, or it naturally has a short battery life. The tips listed above can help extend your battery life, but if your device barely lasts 30 minutes, the only solution is to replace the battery. Or you could use it as a desktop-type system.
For more helpful tips on how to get the most out of your computer, visit Unbound Digital today. You can reach us via our Contact Form, or call us at 423-467-7777