It’s happened to us all. We’re in the middle of working on a project, there’s no power outlet anywhere, and the computer’s battery power indicator has gone from black to red. You know you can make it. At least you’re pretty sure. So you fly across the keyboard as fast as your fingers will let you. The finish line is right there. You just need a few more minutes–and the computer dies. A few years ago, your laptop would have been able to last, but now, your computer just cannot hold the same kind of charge.
Of course, modern laptops don’t let you simply swap out the dead battery and insert a new one. If you want a new battery, you need to take it into a repair shop and drop money on a repair you could have done not long ago. Once your battery life begins to dwindle, you can’t get that lost time back. However, it is possible to extend your laptop battery life to squeeze every second possible out of it. Here are our suggestions for how to extend laptop battery life.
Tips on How to Extend Laptop Battery Life
Go Into Dark Mode
This is a newer feature for laptops, but you absolutely need to take advantage of it if you have it. Dark mode originated with cell phones to help with readability at night and reduce the amount of energy consumed to light up a usual white program window. With dark mode, the screen colors are reversed. The windows are black, and the text is a lighter white. In many ways, it harkens back to the time when you had to tell DOS to launch Windows by typing in commands on a black computer screen. The point, though, is the laptop can save energy by cutting down on the brightness. So, if your computer has a dark mode, you should consider taking advantage.
Another benefit to dark mode is it reduces the amount of blue light produced by the screen and thrown at your eyes. If you get headaches and eye strain from looking at a computer screen for hours on end, it usually is because of the blue light produced. In dark mode, you’ll cut down on this kind of lighting, helping both your laptop battery and your eyes.
Display Brightness
If you don’t have a dark mode on your computer or cannot use the dark mode, you need to cut down on the display brightness. Your computer’s screen uses up much of the laptop battery. Now that your laptop probably no longer has a spinning hard drive or disc drive, there are few moving parts, which help reduce energy consumption. Your screen, however, remains constant, and while screens have become more energy efficient in years, the brightness of your laptop continues to be one of the biggest energy drains.
Turn Off And Restart
First, when you’re done with your computer, don’t just close the laptop and call it good. Power it down. Thankfully, computers can power in extremely fast these days, so you’ll only wait a few moments for this to happen. You will help your laptop battery in two different ways by doing this. First, your laptop won’t be running while it is closed. Even when closed, your laptop still has some elements running. While minimal, it helps extend the life of your battery by not forcing it to draw on any power at all.
The second benefit is throughout your computer remaining on; there will be background programs that turn on. Many of these programs, activities, and tasks will run without you knowing about them. It’s why your laptop can sometimes feel sluggish, and then, after turning it on, your laptop will spring to life. These tasks also consume power from your battery. In order to avoid this kind of power drain, you’ll want to turn the system off. You’ll have a speedy computer every single time you turn it on.
Power Down The Wireless Features You Don’t Need
Chances are you’re going to need the Internet most of the time. But, if you’re sitting at home writing or working on video projects that don’t require any kind of Internet connection, you should turn off Wi-Fi. The wireless Internet receiver does draw power. And even if you do have the Internet on and running, you’ll want to reduce the number of windows you have active. Every open tab and window will use its own small amount of power, which will then slow down the system.
Likewise, if you have Bluetooth active and are not using it, you should turn it off. Bluetooth, like Wi-Fi, will drain the battery.
Battery Save Mode
In need of extra battery life? Go into the settings on your computer and set it to battery save mode. This will alter how the computer functions to maximize the amount of time it can remain on. Usually, it will cut down on the screen brightness, reduce background tasks, and even cut down on the screen resolution and video graphics card usage. This works best if you only need to do basic tasks on your laptop, so keep this in mind.
Let Us Help You With All Your Computing Needs
These are just a few of the ways you can extend the laptop’s battery life. Here at Charlotte IT Solutions, we do more than just offer ideas and tips for maximizing your computer and software performance. We can assist you in many other ways. From safeguarding your office’s network to helping you pick out the right equipment for a data server you’re installing, we are your go-to professionals for all things IT.
So, if you have a question about how we can help you and your team maximize computing performance, improve productivity, and protect your system from external threats, give us a call or send us an email today.