Home > Solution Categories > Mobile Hardware > Laptops/Notebooks > How to increase Laptop battery life
Question
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Type: Question
Author: Mrtrivedi
Your rating: None Average: 5 (10 votes)

I just got my new laptop and based on past experiences with my old laptops, my battery drains so fast even if I always charge it. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, so if you have tips or suggestions on how I can prolong my laptop's battery life, that would be beneficial! Hope to hear from the experts!

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Submitted by Leah_onofre on Wed, 2011-04-27 00:26. Comment Id: 4091
For me, what I usually do is adjust the brightness of my screen to low. The screen drains your laptop with a lot of power. Thus maximum brightness can lessen your battery life to under 3 hours.

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Submitted by Schenkel on Wed, 2011-04-27 00:47. Comment Id: 4094

Edit your startup and remove programs you don’t necessarily need to load right away. Since they run every time you boot and take up CPU and RAM, it's affecting your battery.

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Submitted by Schenkel on Wed, 2011-04-27 00:50. Comment Id: 4095

Just to add, you should make it a habit to defragment your hard drive.

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Submitted by Mikey_az on Wed, 2011-04-27 00:56. Comment Id: 4097
The best technique I can share with you will suit you best if you are the type who leaves your laptop open/ unattended to for a couple of hours. If you want to keep you work open and you need to leave your laptop you have three choices.
 
First - You could leave the laptop running. Which is a waste and should never be done unless it is doing something in the background. e. g. virus scan.
 
Second - You could put the computer on standby, so all the work left open gets stored in the RAM and you can quickly resume when you get back, but the computer uses some power, but little power.
 
Third - Hibernate so all the documents left open get stored on the hard disk, but the computer completely shuts down. It really depends on how long you are going to leave it for.
 
I would recommend hibernating all the time so no power is wasted and only takes a couple of more seconds to wake up than standby. But it depends on how long you are going to leave the laptop for.

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Submitted by Azrael on Wed, 2011-04-27 01:04. Comment Id: 4098

Edit the power options and select “Max Battery” for XP and “power saver” for Windows Vista and Windows 7. Monitor your laptop's temperature as well and keep it cool. Laptop batteries discharge quicker when hot, it’s important not to leave them inside cars when parked outside.

Lastly, if you are going to leave the battery and not use it for a while, make sure that you leave the battery at 40% and never leave a Li-ion battery completely discharged for a long period of time, otherwise it will ruin the battery and probably won't work.

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Submitted by Mrtrivedi on Wed, 2011-04-27 01:13. Comment Id: 4100

These recommendations are remarkable and are just perfect for me, especially the hibernate thing. I always leave my laptop on for a few hours especially when I go on lunch, break or hop on to meetings. I'll definitely use hibernate. Also, I noticed my power settings are set to "Always On", I just changed that now to "Max Battery". Thank you all so much for your useful tips!

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Submitted by Greg Conley on Fri, 2011-04-29 13:55. Comment Id: 4788

Just like mine, sometimes I leave my laptop open, especially when I'm at home while caring my child. Thank you experts.

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