Save laptop battery power Power saving tips
Despite improved battery technologies and more energy efficient processors, bigger, brighter screens drain battery power, as do moving parts such as the hard disk or DVD drive.
In addition, your Wi-Fi transceiver eats power while it’s searching for and talking to wireless hotspots, just as your mobile phone uses energy connecting to its mobile network.
But there are ways to make your battery last longer.
Manage power consumption
Every operating system has some power-management tools built in.
To access these in Windows XP, click Start and select the Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance then Power Options. You'll be presented with several different power schemes. These control how long the system remains inactive before your monitor and hard drive are switched off, and before the system goes into standby or hibernate mode.
Choose the Portable/Laptop mode, and then try changing the options under Running On Batteries. For ultimate battery life, for example, set Turn off monitor to After 2 Minutes and Turn off hard disk to After 5 Minutes.
Microsoft Windows Vista’s power management options are in the same location but it uses different pre-set power options called Power plans. The ‘Power Saver plan’ offers a good start for mobile use, but we recommend you click the Change plan settings link and change Turn off the display to 2 minutes.
For Mac OSX users, click the Apple icon at the top left, then choose System Preferences. In the hardware section, click the Energy Saver icon. In the Energy Saver panel, choose Battery from the Settings For menu and then click the button next to Better Battery Life to set that as the priority.
Finally, move the sliders under Put the computer to sleep when it is inactive for and Put the display to sleep when the computer is inactive for to 10 and 2 minutes, respectively.
Longevity rating: 4 out of 5
Turn off wireless networking
Your notebook’s Wi-Fi connection drains the battery even when you're not connected. If you're not using your wireless connection while you're on the go, we'd advise that you switch it off.
You may have a switch on the side of your laptop that turns your laptop’s Wi-Fi on and off. Alternatively, look for a wireless icon in your computer’s Task Bar. Right-click on the icon to bring up the instructions needed to disable your wireless network.
Longevity rating: 4 out of 5
Adjust your screen’s brightness
The brighter your laptop’s screen the more energy it’s putting into back-lighting it, so make the screen as dim as you comfortably can.
How you adjust the brightness depends on your laptop. With some it’s a Function key command (for example Fn+8, Fn+9) while others will have a physical control or buttons on the side; check your manual to find out how to adjust the brightness.
Longevity rating: 5 out of 5
Do one thing at a time
Don't keep several programs open at once – it eats up processing power, works the memory, and contributes to the steady churning of the hard disk as Windows copies data to and from the virtual memory. Use one program then exit before switching to the next.
Longevity rating: 4 out of 5
Go into hibernation
A Windows laptop has two standby modes – Hibernate and Suspend. The latter restarts more speedily, but it also consumes more power.
To switch to Hibernation in Windows XP, go back to the Power Options control panel (see 'Manage power consumption').
Click the Hibernate tab, and under Hibernate, click the Enable hibernation box. Click OK to finish.
