LAPTOP SPECIAL..... Make your laptop last longer

Make your laptop last longer





Follow these steps to squeeze the most juice out of your laptop's battery

We've all been there.

You're in a meeting, or on the road, and you find, to your horror, that your laptop is nearly dead. Maybe you forgot your power adapter, maybe there isn't an available outlet. For whatever reason, your battery power is dwindling, and you still have stuff to get done. Hope is not lost, however. There are some things you can do to buy more time on that almost-dead battery and steps you can take to make it last longer.

ACTIVATE BATTERY SAVER MODE

Designed with these sorts of circumstances in mind, most Battery Saver or Eco modes engage automatic changes to lengthen usable battery life. This saved profile will adjust your laptop's settings and shift components into low-power states to help ration your remaining juice.

DISABLE UNUSED DEVICES AND PORTS

The easiest way to reduce power consumption is to simply turn stuff off.Every component in your laptop needs power to function, but that doesn't mean you need to power all of those components all of the time.Start by disconnecting any unneeded peripherals (like a USB mouse or external drive) and turning off the biggest power hogs, like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios, graphics processors, and unused optical drives.

ADJUST YOUR SETTINGS

While you'll still have to use the display and keyboard, you can adjust the settings for each to reduce power consumption. One often overlooked power drain is keyboard backlighting. Unless you're in the dark, turn off backlight entirely. You can typically assign a hotkey for this.

The next power drain is your screen. While you obviously need to keep it up and running to use the laptop, you don't necessarily need it running at maximum brightness or resolution. Many laptops will have hotkeys for adjusting screen brightness, but if not, it can be adjusted in the control panel. Reducing the display to 50 percent can add a significant amount of time.

TURN OFF APPS AND PROCESSES

It's not just the hardware that's stealing your battery juice. Multiple apps and processes running on your system will also chew through battery life more quickly. As with the hardware, start by turning off anything that isn't being used.

In Windows, start by taking a look in your system tray, the collection of icons in the lower-right corner of the desktop, next to the clock. On the left end of the System Tray, select the icon to display hid den icons. Take note of which apps are run ning in the background.

In Task Manager, look at the open apps ­ you may find that programs have been left running simply because you forgot to close a window instead of minimising it. Next, go to the Processes tab. This shows you what processes are currently running. While some of these are needed, some, like those associated with media players can be disabled.

SIMPLIFY

You can also stretch your battery life by simplifying your own activities. Multitasking is nice when you have full power, but running several programs at once puts a greater load on the processor and draws more power. Adjust your computer use by sticking to one app at a time and avoiding resource-heavy programs.

Start by single-tasking ­ if you need to type up a document, close additional programs. You'll get longer battery life by not running Apple Music in the background. If you need to keep some tunes going, switch from streaming media to locally stored songs ­ you'll still be using some extra power to play them, but streaming media over Wi-Fi also uses the laptop's wireless radio.

CARE AND FEEDING OF BATTERIES

If your system has a removable battery, take care not to damage the battery contacts. They connect the laptop to the battery, and if the contacts get dirty or damaged, it can reduce and disrupt the flow of power. You can clean the contacts with a cotton swab and rubbing alcohol, but damaged contacts might need to be repaired. This doesn't apply to laptops that seal the battery into the chassis.

While modern laptop batteries don't require you to be as conscientious about how and when you charge it, you should occasionally let the battery drain completely through normal use.

Finally, keep things cool. Heat will shorten the long-term life of the battery, so take steps to provide optimal airflow and cooling. The biggest problems come from physical obstruction of the ventilation ports.Dust buildup is one problem, which you can take care of by cleaning the laptop's vents and fan.

TUNE-UP

The next step is keeping your laptop tuned up for more efficient use of power. A few simple maintenance tasks and upgrades will not only help your battery last longer, but they will also result in a faster system overall.

For starters, regularly defragment your hard drive to make data retrieval more efficient. An active drive uses more energy that an idle one, and defragmenting your hard drive reduces the amount of active drive time needed to access data. In Windows 10, search for “Defragment and Optimize Drive“ to find it. Note: Do not defragment a solid-state drive (SSD), as it will reduce the drive's life.

Decluttering your drive will also make it more efficient. Practice good computer hygiene and regularly remove unwanted programs, clean out cobwebbed files, and ditch bloatware that came with your system.

UPGRADE COMPONENTS

Another option is to ditch the hard drive entirely, and upgrade to an SSD. These use flash memory instead of a spinning disk, so there are no moving parts; this automatically makes them more energy efficient.In addition to improving battery life, SSDs also deliver faster performance and boot times than their traditional counterparts, and remove the problems associated with fragmentation.

Finally, add some more RAM to your system. RAM stores data for short-term use in flash modules, much like an SSD. The more data that can be put into RAM, the less reliant the system will be on pulling that data afresh from the hard drive.

BATTERY BACKUP

The easiest way to ensure that you always have enough battery power is to bring along an extra; either a spare battery or an external battery pack.For laptops with a removable battery, the simplest option is a second battery. These can either be ordered from the manufacturer, or purchased from a third-party brand. Simply swap the old battery for the new one when charging, and bring along the charged-up spare whenever you expect to be away from an outlet.

Another, similar option is to buy an external power pack. While it is also technically a battery, these external power sources plug in to your laptop the same way your charger does.

Matthew Murray

MM 4OCT16