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112 Comments
- NicoNicoNico, on 02/07/2009, -4/+140Summary of the article:
1) Use defrag.
2) Kill unnecessary processes using ctrl+alt+delete
3) Don't run any scheduled tasks unless the laptop's plugged in.
4) Don't use any external devices.
5) Leave the CD/DVD drive empty.
6) Like #4, don't use external drives while on the batteries.
7) Keep the screen brightness on a low setting.
8) Mute the speakers.
9) Don't use a screensaver.
10) Use 'Power Options' in the Control Panel.
11) Don't use any fancy graphics. Turn off things like 'Aero Glass'.
12) Let it hibernate, not sleep.
13) Keep the amount of running programs to a minimum.
14) Have more RAM. It makes it so the computer doesn't have to struggle so much to contact the HD.
15) Keep the air vents clean.
16) Don't leave it where it can get hot, including in the sun.
17) Don't plug it in until the battery is almost drained.
18) Update all software and devices.
19) Use the right adapter.
20) Remove the battery if you don't need to use it for awhile.
All common sense items. - Barackalypse, on 02/07/2009, -1/+66The title is a bit misreading, I was hoping it was about care and maintenance tips to keep your battery from wearing out prematurely, instead it is just about increasing runtimes by conversing power.
- ichibanjay, on 02/07/2009, -0/+27One of the lesser known facts about Li-ion batteries is that their capacity slowly declines with age, no matter if you have the battery sitting on a shelf or if you are using it regularly. Li-ion batteries that are kept in a hot environment (like a hot running laptop) degrade even faster.
From Wikipedia:
"At a 100% charge level, a typical Li-ion laptop battery that is full most of the time at 25 °C or 77 °F will irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year. However, a battery in a poorly ventilated laptop may be subject to a prolonged exposure to much higher temperatures, which will significantly shorten its life. Different storage temperatures produce different loss results: 6% loss at 0 °C (32 °F), 20% at 25 °C (77 °F), and 35% at 40 °C (104 °F). When stored at 40%–60% charge level, the capacity loss is reduced to 2%, 4%, 15% at 0, 25 and 40 degrees Celsius respectively."
Which explains why my Powerbook and Macbook Pro's batteries never lasted more than a year even though I always had my laptop plugged in (I did do deep discharges once a month as recommended by Apple). Those things run HOT, and the aluminum chassis made for "dissipating heat" plus the placement of the battery smack dab in the center of the laptop did not help things one bit. Form over function I guess....
More information can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery#S ... - garionw, on 02/07/2009, -3/+25I just swapped mine with a new one from school
- waxcrash, on 02/07/2009, -0/+14Sorry, but can you read?
"Li-Ion batteries on the other hand have no problems with partial discharges and re-charges and complete discharge is never recommended for this type." - rolf, on 02/07/2009, -0/+14They should mention defrag is a windows only thing. OS X and Linux most of the time don't need it, nor if you hav SSD.
- srg13, on 02/07/2009, -0/+13They do only have a limited number of charge-recharge cycles before they lose capacity though...
- tiger32kw, on 02/07/2009, -0/+12Summary of the Summary:
1) Do less stuff on your laptop
2) Turn it off when your not using it - Giga, on 02/07/2009, -2/+13They should mention ctrl+alt+del is a Windows only thing too, why must you be picky about the defrag? Virtually all of these silly articles are Windows centric. Also, how is #2 different to #13?
- nerrve, on 02/07/2009, -3/+14"All common sense items"
only to a techie. not to 'common' people .. :) - dragon76, on 02/07/2009, -2/+1114) Have more RAM. It makes it so the computer doesn't have to struggle so much to contact the HD.
You can have CRAZY amounts of RAM and have nothing running and Windows will still beat a hard drive like a drunken Russell Crowe. Windows has to have one of the worst virtual memory schemes in the industry. - mynameistux, on 02/07/2009, -2/+11wtf are common people doing on digg?
- inactive, on 02/07/2009, -1/+10Usernames with numbers instead of letters suck.
Unless you're 9. - ramsinks.com, on 02/07/2009, -0/+8not true. wives tale talk.
- Sillywombat, on 02/07/2009, -1/+9In bref, close all the things your not really using. Makes sense. Did it really need 15 points to say that?
- maroon1872, on 02/07/2009, -0/+8yeah get back to your potato farms commoners!
- rolf, on 02/07/2009, -0/+8I find the less I use the battery, the longer it lasts (lifetime). Perhaps because it forces the battery to cycle less? Although I do take out the battery itself when it's 100% at home (for when I do need it) and just keep the computer plugged in.
For instance, my cell phone battery lasted 3x as long as my parents (same model) because they leave it on all the time while I turn my phone off when not in use (sleep, etc). They already replaced their batteries 3x because it no longer held a charge. - Amadeus2490, on 02/07/2009, -0/+7The preceding comment has been brought to you by the hyphen.
- lostradamus, on 02/07/2009, -1/+8Uh disable wireless maybe?
- firstc624, on 02/07/2009, -0/+6wow long article for such a thing that should be common sense.
- Myztry, on 02/07/2009, -1/+7Rarely is common sense actually that common.
- wolfing, on 02/07/2009, -0/+6I disagree on the defrag, or at least it should specify... Defrag while you're connected to the power. If you defrag while you're on battery, you're actually killing off any benefit you may get.
- Popeiler, on 02/07/2009, -0/+6Leave the battery in the laptop. Free UPS.
- ozwolfbane, on 02/07/2009, -0/+5Is it better to always leave AC power plugged in if u are always near a point ?
- stephapple, on 02/07/2009, -0/+5Dugg for the helpful comments more so than the article.
- sk545, on 02/07/2009, -0/+5Better:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=9 ... - DarkProd, on 02/07/2009, -1/+6-Written by Captain Obvious.
- d4ni, on 02/07/2009, -0/+4And the GPU does not need power to run? The GPU only renders the fancy effects, the CPU is still needed. Basically, Aero Glass = CPU + GPU, whereas Classic = CPU. And yes, the load on the CPU is pretty much the same in both situations imho.
- aspec, on 02/07/2009, -0/+4I'm really glad the author of this article pointed out to me that I should be working on a spreadsheet and not playing a game. Now I know what's been killing my battery all this time! I was even playing with the screen brightness turned to just before off and the sound on mute. And to think, I was doing it all wrong.
- hyperspaztik, on 02/07/2009, -0/+4Just get a solid state drive. That knocks a few off the list.
- univerio, on 02/07/2009, -0/+3conserving*
- factsahoy, on 02/07/2009, -0/+3That's a very spammy comment.
- Myztry, on 02/07/2009, -1/+4Defragmenting inside the OS is for the most part a waste of time.
An excellent method used to be to backup the drive using Ghost and restore it back over itself. This worked brilliantly with the boot disc version of Ghost as the the files would get sorted by filename>folder>sector. The drive would barely flash when rebooting.
These days all the system tools (including Ghost) waste their time inside the OS trying to work around the fact it's a live system that is being severely limited by the OS, and ending up with half baked results. - ricksite, on 02/07/2009, -0/+3SSD's can read fragmented files at full speed. No need to defrag. Defragmenting wastes write cycles on the drive too.
- klowngoblin, on 02/07/2009, -0/+3how about you undervolt your CPU for longer life? on my old Pentium M1.6 Asus laptop (M6BNe) it went from 3.75Hrs to 5Hrs after i undervolted it from 1.2 to 0.9v
also you dont remove that battery at 100% if you need to store it you store it at 40%
also charing batteries in a warm temp fucts them up, anything running hot fucts it up. - inactive, on 02/07/2009, -0/+3I had the feeling it was going to be a bunch of bull *****. Thanks for saving me the time of looking at it.
- alclone, on 02/07/2009, -1/+4I have to disagree... or at least question #17. I've heard that nearly draining the battery would decrease the life of the battery.
- Suspicious, on 02/07/2009, -0/+3I've had an ibm thinkpad a31 for 6 years before the batteries died completely. I always made sure my batteries were drained to 1% until i went back to recharge, and i kept it real cool. The damn thing had a loud fan but i think that's why the battery lasted so long. and i agree with the first post, use the battery. i think having it plugged in 24/7 kills the battery too. My sis had a dell which she always kept it plugged in and the battery died on her less then a year. hope this helps anyone.
- sneaker98, on 02/07/2009, -0/+2Is there some sort of power options for it? On my old Toshiba laptop, you can change everything from CPU performance to Monitor Brightness, etc.
Some of the tips in the article are, indeed, pretty minimal. The ones that will make a noticeable difference, however, are:
-Monitor brightness. Putting it on the lowest will make a HUGE difference
-External hard-drives/CD-Rom's really do suck up a lot of power.
You also might have a bad battery. Mine, for instance, has never worked properly - I'll have 90% power for about 30 minutes, and then it'll drop to nearly depleted. I'll have to run and find a plug. - fightingforair, on 02/07/2009, -0/+2For PC, not Mac. (although some tips do work on both)
- merreborn, on 06/19/2009, -0/+2Where's "turn off wifi/bluetooth"?
- P1um, on 02/07/2009, -0/+2To keep your battery from wearing out, run down the battery until the laptop shuts down by itself. Then charge it to 100% and leave it plugged in for a couple hours. Do this at least once a week for the best results.
- jamcubed, on 02/07/2009, -0/+2How the hell is this in the top 10??
- darthjure, on 02/07/2009, -1/+3"Mobile computing has got better..." Has got? No. Should be "has gotten".
- neko, on 02/07/2009, -0/+2http://www.batteryuniversity.com
- Tarotsan, on 02/08/2009, -0/+2From now on whenever I want to kick back and relax its spreadsheets all the way.
- Popeiler, on 02/07/2009, -0/+2Lithium-ion batteries have a specific shelf life. They degrade at the same rate whether or not they're in the computer. Additionally, the battery memory effect that was present in older ni-cad and ni-mi batteries is no longer present in lithium-ion batteries, so discharging batteries before charging them has no effect.
- djpray2k, on 02/07/2009, -0/+2I went from a desktop to laptop about a year ago, I was living in a new apartment and I wanted to make some space. The problem was that I didn't want to loose the type of system I had before, so my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1721) is a BEAST! I get a maximum 1hr 30mins off a full charge.
Is there something I'm doing wrong? I don't see these tips making that much of a difference.
It may have been wise to get a smaller screen or less powerful PC but I was on a budget and didn't want a worse computer. I didn't need it to be portable, just compact. - bdfariello, on 02/07/2009, -0/+2I've been using the same laptop and laptop battery since August 2004, and anytime I've been near an outlet I've been plugged in. I didn't notice any substantial battery degradation until last year, but from what I understand, a battery lasting 3+ years without crapping out is a pretty good thing.
Now my battery charges to 47% of its original max capacity, according to the message I get when I boot Ubuntu, and ranges between 60 and 90 minutes on a "full" charge. - average650, on 02/07/2009, -0/+1it depends on the type of battery. Now batteries are almost all lithium ion, so you on't have to wait for the battery to run down. I think it's nickel cadmium or something like that that needed to be run down all the way.
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