I have been working on so many laptops lately, and have seen customers buying new ones; I thought it would be a good idea to give some tips about the batteries. Our good ‘ol towers do not have the battery power option, so most of us are not as familiar with the Wall power vs. battery power that a laptop utilizes.
Get 'em while they are HOT!
Buy a second battery within the first year of owning the laptop. Batteries will be in full supply. After a couple years the batteries get scarce, and can cost double the original price.
Squeeze some extra battery juice out of a charge:
- Disable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi if you are not using them. Bluetooth usually has an icon in the control panel. The Wi-Fi usually has a switch or button on the computer that you turn on or off. These are like using a radio, they take power.
- Drop the screen brightness down. The LCD Screen has a light bulb that uses a lot of power. This can usually be done with the good old function key that is labeled “Fn” usually in a different color, on the lower left of the keyboard. The Fn key in combination with the key that has the brighter/darker icon, usually a sun or what looks like a light bulb.
in XP with Start Menu > Control Panel > Power Options.
In Vista go to Start Menu>Control Panel> Click on Classic View, then Power Options. - Do not play music or DVDs directly from the DVD/CD player. The motor uses a lot of power. Copy them onto the computer and play them from there. Also with movies or shows, view them online on places such as HULU or another download service.
How to extend the life of your battery
Batteries will loose their charge over time, even the better new type batteries. If you leave your laptop plugged in most of the time, you can speed this process up a lot, and your battery will die much faster. The battery rarely gets a chance to recycle it’s charge, and thus looses it’s ability to hold a good charge.
If you are using your laptop mostly plugged into AC wall current, take the battery out when convenient. This will allow the battery to discharge and not always be charging. Just make sure you charge it up when you hit the road.
Have you ever noticed that on
Here is how to change this setting. It is really hidden, but when you change it, the button turns red and will now say “Shutdown”, which is what you want it to do. I have changed this on many customers’ laptops, so make sure to check yours and see if you need to make this change.
- Open the Control Panel and go to Power Options.
- Click Change plan settings for your selected power plan.
- Click Change advanced power settings.
- Expand Power buttons and lid.
- Expand Start menu power button.
- Change the setting from Sleep to Shut down.
- Click OK.
Now you have a real shutdown button!
0 Response to "Tips on Extending the Life of Laptop/Notebook Batteries"
Posting Komentar