Friday, October 12, 2012
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Extend your
laptop’s battery life in 5 minutes
The amount of life left in your battery is shown by the
icon in your Windows 7 notifications area, or your system tray if you’re using
an older version of Windows. By clicking on the icon you can see the exact
length of time your battery has left, as well as your current power plan.
Turn off wireless
As well as changing your power plan and seeing at a glance
how much power you have left, you can also use Windows Mobility Center to turn
your wireless networking on and off. When you’re not connected Windows will
sniff to see if there are networks you can connect to, which drains battery.
Turning wireless off altogether will save you heaps of juice.
Change Power Options
By left-clicking on the battery icon, you’ll be able to
see this menu. We’ll look at the Windows Mobility Center shortly, but for now,
just select Power Options, which is a one stop shop for the way Windows works,
and consumers power on your laptop. Coincidentally, the other option on this
menu enables you to turn icons on or off in the notifications area.
Select a power plan
The Power Options window lets you change settings that
affect how your laptop consumes power. You can conserve energy when you need to
be frugal and get a boost when you need more performance.
Change a plan
You
can choose any of the plans shown or create your own using the option provided
in the main window. Your laptop might also have a bespoke power plan created by
the manufacturer that isn’t necessarily the best for consuming power. You can
change any of these settings.
Advanced settings
There is also a ‘Change advanced power settings’ option.
This enables you to change other power options normally micro-managed by
Windows, such as the time after which it rests your hard disk. Such tweakings
may affect performance, but will also boost battery life.
Dim
your screen
This is probably the most important step of the lot – your
display is responsible for a lot of the power drawn from your laptop.
You can dim your screen using the function keys on your
keyboard, whcih will be marked like the ones in the picture.
Some laptop screens have been known to account for up to
40 per cent of the power used at any one time, so its well worth using this
feature whenever possible. You can even set your power options to turn off the
screen after a couple of minutes of inactivity, which is as power-efficient as
it gets.
Remove peripherals
Take out USB peripherals or memory sticks, which use your
PC’s power to function. They’re a huge drain on resources, so make do with
using the trackpad while you’re working away from the mains.
Remove CDs and DVDs
If there’s a disc in your drive, then it will spin
regularly so that Windows can see if it’s still present, and offer you the
correct information. You guess it, spinning the drive taxes your battery, so
take discs out to save prolong your battery’s life.
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