Notebook usage tips. How to extend notebook's battery life?

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Notebook usage tips. How to extend notebook's battery life?
Those who frequently travel abroad or to other cities use notebooks a lot. While traveling in trains and planes they will work using their notebooks without wasting time.

While at home and office, notebooks use AC power. While in Trains and Planes notebooks depend on the DC power supplied by the battery.

During a 12 hours journey if you would like to use the notebook at least for 6 hours then your notebook's battery should last for at least six hours. During journey if you follow the tips given below you can extend the battery life of notebook computers. Your journey will be successful.

Follow these tips to extend your your notebook battery's life
Power off the monitor and the hard disk.

When you are using the computer, if you have to leave the computer to attend to something else then you can power off the monitor and hard disk during that time. This will increase the battery's life. You can make the Windows Operating System carry out this job automatically.

Open the control panel and click on 'Power Options'. In the new dialog box select the 'Power Schemes'. In the 'Running on batteries' section change the time provided in the 'Turn off monitor' and 'Turn of hard disks' to a shorter time. Generally you don't have to change the default settings in the Os. But you can change it if you want it.

Enable Hibernation

In Windows XP there is a Hibernation feature. Many use the 'Stand by' option instead of hibernation. There is a difference between hibernation and standby. When you are not using the computer you can use both of them. But if you choose hibernation then all your work will be backed up and then the computer will be fully shut down. The battery power will be saved. In stand by mode the battery power is still being used by the computer.

As given in the previous heading, in the 'Power Options properties' dialog box click on the 'Hibernate' tab and select the 'Enable Hibernation' check box.

Change the BIOS setting

Electricity related settings can also be determined in the BIOS settings. If there is a difference between the time you have given in Windows and the time you have given in BIOS then the time given in the BIOS will override the time given in the windows. Therefore make changes accordingly to make these two settings same.

Decrease the screen brightness

When you use the notebook in battery reduce the screen's brightness. This will extend battery's life.

Remove unwanted hardware from your notebook

Whether you use or not, all the hardware connected to the computer will consume power. You can use the mouse pad provided in the notebook instead of an external mouse.

Disable unused devices

Disable unused devices such as Wi-Fi, Infrared while not in use. You can disable them either through appropriate menu options or by right clicking the system tray icons in the task bar.

Also disable Anti-virus software, scheduler, Instant messaging etc. This will increase battery life. After your journey you can enable them again.

Do not run unwanted applications

During journey you may use VCD, DVD etc to view movies. This will consume lot of battery power. So use them wisely.