Running out of battery power on your laptop can be extremely frustrating when you’re traveling. It always seems to expire at the most inopportune times possible. Although it’s inevitable that your laptop’s battery will eventually run out if you do not charge it, there are a few ways to ensure that it will last for as long as possible. Here are a few great ways to extend your laptop’s battery life.
Lower Brightness
Lighting up the screen on your laptop can be a process that consumes a lot of battery life. Your laptop’s screen is probably much brighter than you need it to be. Fortunately, lowering the brightness on your laptop is very easy. Most modern laptops have buttons on the keyboard that will allow you to lower or increase your screen’s brightness. If yours does not have these buttons, it should be easy to find in your computer’s settings.
Disable Wi-Fi
Wireless Internet connections are very important when you need to look for something online. However, chances are that you don’t need them all of the time. Being available for a wireless connection can waste a lot of battery life. When your Wi-Fi setting is turned on, your laptop will continuously search for new networks, even if you are not using the Internet at the moment. This continued search will waste battery endlessly. As with brightness settings, most laptops include a button than can turn Wi-Fi on and off.
Limit External Devices
Any external devices, particularly those that are operated with USB or FireWire connections, will drain battery from your laptop in order to operate. Although it may be convenient to leave them plugged in when you’re not using them, you should know that unplugging them will save a lot of battery life. Even spending a little bit of time with your external devices unplugged may save you a great deal of battery life.
Power-Saving Settings
Many laptops feature power-saving settings. These settings will lessen the burden of features that drain the battery, particularly as your battery life gets low. Some of them will reduce system performance until you can plug your computer in. Others may automatically reduce brightness and other settings. You can typically customize power-saving settings to your needs. These features are a great way to squeeze out those last few minutes of battery life.
Buy a New Battery
One of the dirty secrets of the laptop business is that batteries aren’t made to last. The chemicals that allow your battery to be rechargeable will deteriorate as time elapses and they are charged a certain number of times. Eventually, these materials may even pose a risk of damaging your computer. If you’re noticing that your battery just doesn’t seem to last as long as it used to, it is probably time to buy a replacement.
Limited laptop battery life doesn’t have to be a productivity-killing burden. If you are sure to take steps to ensure that your battery can last as long as possible, you will be rarely left trying to salvage your work as your laptop shuts down.
