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Any device’s battery life is one of the most critical factors for any user. This is more so for laptop owners who work remotely for long hours daily. Having a laptop plugged in forever is not the best feeling. So, what steps can one take to improve their laptop’s battery life?
Use the Windows Battery Performance Slider
The first step to improving your PC’s battery life is the Windows battery performance slider. This is designed to group all settings affecting battery life into a few easy-to-understand categories. This makes it even more convenient as it is the company that made your PC that gets to determine precisely which settings the battery slider controls.
Don’t Leave Your Laptop on Permanent Charge
Modern lithium-ion batteries have been equipped with overcharging protection. However, it’s still not good for their long-term health when you leave your laptop constantly plugged into the mains. Some manufacturers (including Sony and Lenovo) provide a utility that limits the battery from fully charging.
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This is meant to help prevent the battery from degrading, which means that you can always leave your laptop connected to power. This is not the case for every laptop, which is why you need to be mindful of how long you leave it plugged in.
In case you want to get the maximum power level, disable the limiter on “Battery Care Function” and allow it to charge to 100%.
Upgrade to an SSD
Mechanical hard disks have proven not just to be a disadvantage to a PC’s performance but also when it comes to battery life. This is because hard disks require more watts to spin their platters.
This differs from a solid-state drive (SSD) with no moving parts. So, other than making your laptop a lot more responsive, it does contribute to improving your battery life.
Get a New Battery
Unlike what most people believe, laptop batteries are consumables, just like printer ink. The condition that a new battery is in will not be the same two years after you start using it. They tend to degrade over time after several years of hard use. This is why you’ll find some laptops only charging up to 50% or having 100% that only lasts half the time.
While some laptops don’t have replaceable batteries, some do, and you can buy third-party replacements for considerably less than the cost of the original one.
You can follow other tips if none of these seems to work for you. This includes:
- Switching to internal graphics
- Managing your memory
- Disconnecting unnecessary external devices
- Disabling WiFi or/and Bluetooth
- Dim the screen
Cover photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash
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