Get the best of out of your laptop battery

Laptop batteries are similar to people - eventually and inevitably, they die. And like people, they don't obey Moore's Law - You can't expect next year's batteries to last twice as long as this year's.

Although your battery will eventually die, proper care can put off the inevitable. 

Here's how to keep your laptop battery working for as long as possible :

Don't run it down to empty

Squeezing every drop of juice out of a lithium ion battery strains and weakens it. Doing this once or twice won't kill the battery, but the cumulative effect of frequently emptying your battery will shorten its lifespan.

Give it a rest

If you're going to be working exclusively on AC power for a week or more, remove the battery first.

Otherwise, you'll be wearing out the battery by constantly charging and discharging it especially at a time when you don't need to use it at all. Remember, you're also heating it up.

You don't want it too empty when you take it out. An unused battery loses power over time, and you don't want all the power to drain away, so remove it when it's at least half-charged.

Keep it cool

Heat breaks down the battery, and reduces its overall life.

When you use your laptop, make sure the vents are unblocked. Never work with the laptop on pillows or cushions. If possible, put it on a raised stand that allows for plenty of airflow.

Shut off unneeded hardware 

Turn off your Bluetooth, and if you're not using the Internet, turn off your Wi-Fi receiver, as well. Avoid using an external mouse or other device. And muting the PC's sound system not only saves power, it avoids annoying everyone else in the café.

Know when to sleep and when to hibernate

You need to think about when you want to save power by sending your laptop into Standby or Sleep mode, and when you want to hibernate it.

There's a difference. XP's Standby and Vista and Windows 7's Sleep modes keep your PC on, using some power, but less of it than in normal use. Hibernate saves the PC's state to the hard drive, then shuts it off entirely, so that no power is used.

Avoid multitasking

Run as few programs as you can get away with. If possible, stick to the one application you're currently using, plus your antivirus and firewall in the background.

And if you're not on the Internet, you don't need those two.

Avoid multimedia 

Save chores like photo editing and watching videos for when you have AC power. And if you must listen to music, use your MP3 player (or similar device).

Dim your screen

Your laptop's backlight requires a lot of juice. Keep it as dim as you can comfortably read it.

Techdy Bear views :

You probably already know how to get longer laptop battery life. Perhaps this post will you some inputs and explanation behind these tips. You really can get the best of out of your laptop battery. But, it's up to you to do it right. Try them now, see the result yourself.

sources : PC World