As a local PC repair and tech support shop in Manchester, we understand the importance of prolonging your laptop or PC’s battery life. You might find yourself working out of the office without access to a nearby charging port and need to fully optimise your battery power on the move.
It is important to understand the battery that your device holds and the best way to look after it overall. For example, most laptops come with lithium batteries and while being constantly plugged into a charging source will eventually damage the battery, there are some other things to avoid to maintain its health:
Charge/discharge cycles: Every battery has a finite number of cycles it can be charged and discharged. While it’s important to ensure your laptop isn’t constantly plugged into a power source, it’s just as important to not let your battery drain to 0% as your device goes into deep discharge – similar to a car battery, it might require an extra boost to start back up.
Temperatures over 30 degrees celsius: Batteries exposed to temperatures greater than this can cause long-term damage to your battery’s performance. Ensure you don’t leave your computer exposed to direct sunlight or left in a parked car during summer time.
Voltage level: The higher the charge level, the shorter the battery’s life. Modern-day laptop batteries have an average charging lifespan of 300-500 discharge cycles.
Here are some other useful tricks to help make your battery life last longer:
Lower Your Screen Brightness
Your screen brightness is something you might not even realise is taking up a lot of battery power. You might not even need your screen brightness on in the day, and turning it down will save you a lot of power, meaning you don’t need to reach for the charger sooner.
A Darker Desktop Background
This small change will help lengthen the battery life on your PC or laptop. Darker displays require less power, therefore changing your desktop background image to a display with darker tones will require less juice from your power source.
Turn Off Keyboard Backlights
Most laptops and PC keyboards have built-in backlights, another useful feature for using your device in poorly-lit areas. As useful as this tool is, it’s silently draining your battery power. You can adjust your keyboard backlights in the settings area of your device or by using the function keys that are available.
Power Saving Settings
Most modern laptops and PC’s have power-saving settings. These are designed to give you the best power settings when unplugged from the mains, optimising your battery’s performance. Windows introduced a battery slider feature in which you can decide whether your wish to obtain a better computer performance or a better battery performance. Depending on what you require, your device will determine the best settings available for your requirements.
Switch Off WiFi
If this is possible for the tasks you wish to complete on your computer, it will save you a lot of battery performance. A lot of the power is taken from the built-in wireless system constantly looking for a connection while you’re working. Many modern laptops and computers have settings that allow you to manually turn off WiFi so it isn’t constantly running while you’re using your device. By turning it off, you will save more battery life in the long run.
Look At Your Battery Usage
Many desktops and laptops will allow you to see what apps and software is using up the most battery performance. For example, Windows has a feature called battery usage by app in the settings menu which will show you the percentage of battery your apps have used in the past 6 or 24 hours in the past week. If you discover an app that is taking up more battery life than you’d like, you can toggle off the switch for Managed by Windows and ensure the box is unchecked for Allow app to run background tasks.
If multiple apps are running background tasks while you’re using your computer, this can have a large impact on your battery’s overall performance. Management of which apps can run these tasks will reduce the power required and help prolong your device usage without needing to charge it back up immediately.
Unplug your USB’s
Using devices that require a USB connection require power from the motherboard of your computer or laptop. Items like webcams, pen drives and mice will require power when plugged in via USB, taking up more juice from your battery. By unplugging these where possible, you will save a lot of power. If you have speakers plugged into your system, try to reduce the number of sound notifications or turn the volume down as these all require battery power from your device.
Turn Off Bluetooth
This is very similar to the WiFi feature. A wireless connection can consume battery power without you even realising. As it’s a feature that runs in the background, it can easily go unnoticed. However, turning off this feature when it’s not in use will allow more time for you to use your device without needing a power source.
Manually Disable Features
Many modern laptops and PC’s come with built-in features designed to enhance your system’s performance, however, enhanced performance equals poor battery performance. In order to keep your charge for longer, you can head to your device’s setting and manually toggle your performance features, allowing more of a more prolonged performance from your battery.
Invest in Hardware
Most laptops come with a six-cell battery but most brands offer the option to upgrade this which can vastly improve the holding power of your charge. This can be quite an expensive option, alternatively, you can invest in portable laptop battery chargers which will give you better performance without compromising the battery life. These are compact battery units that are easy to fit in your bag when travelling.
If you require further advice and support regarding computer battery performance, do not hesitate to contact Manchester PC – tech support that comes to you.
