Expert Tips for Maximizing Laptop Battery Life
A dead or low laptop battery can be extremely annoying for users and often happens at the most inconvenient of times. Whether you’ve forgotten your power adapter or charger or there isn’t a power outlet available nearby, completely losing all power isn’t always an option when you need to get work done.
This situation can be avoided quite easily with a little bit of tender loving care for your laptop’s battery. We’ve listed some of our top long-term and short-term tips to help improve your laptop’s battery and make your device more reliable.
Caring for Your Laptop Battery
If your laptop has a removable battery, it’s vitally important that you take care not to damage the battery’s contacts. This is the part that connects the battery itself to the laptop, and once damaged or covered in dirt, it’s difficult to fix as it disrupts the flow of power. Regularly clean the contacts using a cotton swab to try and maintain them, but you may need to get them professionally repaired if they’re permanently damaged.
Charging Your Laptop Battery
Most charging advice is very outdated now and doesn’t necessarily apply to more modern lithium-ion or lithium-polymer batteries that are used in laptops built today. Although these new batteries don’t require you to follow specific charging methods or rules, it is worth noting that you should occasionally let the battery drain completely every once in a while.
Don’t Allow Your Laptop to Overheat
Allowing your laptop and its battery to overheat can be fatal and dramatically shorten the lifespan of the battery. It’s important to try and provide optimal airflow and space for your laptop to stay cool whilst in use. Remove any obstructions that may be blocking the ventilation ports and regularly clean dust away from the vents and fans. The easiest way to avoid problems is by using your laptop on mainly clear surfaces such as a table or desk instead of propped up on a pillow or soft surface.
Upgrade Components
If you are caring for your laptop and its battery well, it may be running low regularly because other parts need replacing. Elements such as older hard drives with spinning disks can cause issues because they involve so many moving parts. Here it’s a good idea to switch up to new parts such as an SSD using flash memory where nothing moves. Combine this with components such as added RAM and your laptop’s efficiency can dramatically improve, therefore saving vital battery life.
Short-Term Tips
- Switch to battery saver mode when your battery is running low or you need to run your device for a long time without access to a power supply
- Disable all unused devices and extra accessories such as a USB mouse or external hard drive
- Adjust settings to turn off unnecessary extras such as backlighting on keyboards, bright screens or high-resolution display
- Quit all apps and processes that you don’t need running
- Simplify your work and avoid multitasking or having multiple tabs open
Need further help with your laptop battery? Find out more and check out our replacement laptop battery stock.