How to Improve your PC battery life with simple Tweak

Either you buy your Laptop brand new or used, there’s a tendency the battery will get weaker over time.

However, there are measures that can help to save your laptop battery, and get more battery life.

3 quick tips for beginners

1. Adjust screen brightness

In addition to the hard drive and (if available), the DVD drive, heavy use of the PC, the laptop monitor, in particular, uses a lot of power.

If you dim the screen brightness regularly while using it, you can save a lot of energy and save your laptop battery life.

As a rule, there are function keys on every laptop keyboard with which you can conveniently control the brightness.

These buttons are labeled and designed differently depending on the manufacturer.

You can test the Fn key. “Fn” stands for “function” or “function”. How to adjust the brightness on your laptop can be found in the operating instructions.

2. Switch off external data carriers and devices

Every device connected or docked to the laptop increases power consumption.

In order to save the battery, do not only remove external drives but also pull USB sticks out of the device when you are not in need of them.

Another major power consumer is the mouse, which you can easily replace with the touchpad when you’re on the move.

3. Smarter charging – so your computer has more of it

Contrary to the widespread assumption that frequent charging could damage the battery, this is no longer the case with modern laptops.

A simple but effective tip is therefore to charge your notebook whenever the battery is low.

However, you should avoid charging the battery all the time or leave it charging for hours after the battery is full.

If your battery is 70 percent charged, you have reached a good charge mark.

It is also not good to continue to use your PC when the battery us less than 10 percent, this can affect the battery life negatively.

For PC with a removable battery, some users are advised to remove their battery and plug directly it the PC can work in such manner.

If you leave the power adapter connected to the laptop, this will lead to a slightly increased power consumption.

However, this hardly shortens the life of the battery – because the lithium-ion batteries that are used in all modern notebooks automatically stop the charging process when they are full.

Advanced tips for Battery management

Deactivate unnecessary features

If you still want to type a letter in the dark on the balcony in the evening, the keyboard is backlit – but it also uses a lot of electricity.

If your laptop has such a function, switch off the keyboard light to save energy and prolong the battery life.

On laptops with keyboard light, this is usually done with the F9 key.

Please refer to the operating instructions to find out which button is on your model.

If the battery level is low, you should also switch off Bluetooth and WiFi if not in use.

The two are constantly trying to connect to other devices and consume a lot of battery power.

Deactivating Bluetooth or WLAN is easy using the function key or in the control panel.

To do this, click on Start > Settings > Network and Internet > WLAN for WLAN and switch off the wireless network there.

To turn off Bluetooth, click Start > Settings > Device > Bluetooth and operated there by clicking the slide switch.

Close programs running in the background

Like on your smartphone, there are different programs that run in the background of your PC, often without you noticing it.

Some of the applications still remain active after exiting – which can also drain the battery.

Browsers are particularly susceptible here because they have many additional programs (add-ons) that sometimes still run after you have actually closed the browser a long time ago.

To track down such power guzzlers, for example in Windows 10, you can use the Task Manager.

Steps to take

First, hold down the key combination Ctrl + Alt + Del at the same time for a moment.

In the menu that appears, click on Task Manager to start the program, where you can see all the programs and processes that are running on your computer.

If an application appears there that you have actually already closed, you can also remove the elements that have remained in the memory.

Select the program via mouse click and click End Task. Don’t worry, programs that your PC needs for operation at the moment or in which unsaved documents are open cannot be closed this way – or a corresponding warning appears.

Start and customize energy saving plans

Various manufacturers now have an energy-saving plan on their computers. At Lenovo, for example, this is called “Energy Saver”, at Asus “Quiet Office”.

The advantage in any case is that you can usually manage your battery comfortably with the function key Fn plus the respective energy saving key.

Windows 10 also offers predefined energy-saving plans. These are setting combinations in which certain system settings are combined with one another in order to optimally regulate energy consumption.

Windows 10 is usually equipped with the following three setting options:

Balanced
power-saving mode
High performance

The balanced mode represents a blend of savings and performance.

The device consequently does not work with the highest performance and switches off relatively quickly when it is not in use, but it also saves energy.

In energy-saving mode, the computer throttles some functions, such as the brightness of the display and the processor performance.

Many laptops automatically switch to an energy-saving mode whenever they are disconnected from direct entry supply.

This can be seen well, for example, when the screen suddenly becomes darker.

Maximum power eventually also means a lot of energy, you can then work with the maximum speed but also in all programs.

In Windows 10, you activate the energy-saving plan on Start > Settings > System > mains operation and energy savings.