Ways to Increase a Laptop’s Autonomy

If you have a laptop you definitely came at least once in the situation where you had no outlet nearby and needed a few more minutes to finish watching a movie, or sending an e-mail. I propose in this article to highlight some effective and easy to implement methods that can make a significant increase in your laptop’s battery autonomy.

We divided the tips into two categories, simple measures to achieve with no effort whatsoever and more complicated ones, which bring a significant increase of the duration between two successive chargings of the battery.

Simple measures

* Use a headset instead of speakerso because they consume much power
* Select an appropriate energy conservation profile on Windows
* Reduce the screen brightness as much as you can
* Disable the radio controllers that you do not need: WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G
* Disable the ports that you do not need: serial / parallel, FireWire port, fingerprint reader
* Do not keep running in the background the programs that you do not use
* Do not run programs that use the notebook’s components intensively, such as games, converters, audio / video, Web pages with a large number of flashes on them.
* Do not use peripherals: USB Mouse, external hard drives, USB drives, ExpressCards and generally any peripherals
* Use the latest drivers for your system. They bring along additional functions and optimization of the existing ones, especially regarding the power consumption.
* If using Windows Vista or Windows 7 a great way to increase the autonomy is to disable the animation of the windows to minimize / maximize, to remove the effects of transparency and to disable Aero.

Measures more advanced or complicated

* Change the settings of the Wireless network card driver
* Change the profile related to Energy Conservation on Windows
* Buy more RAM to avoid using the hard drive intensively
* Use a program to decrease the CPU frequency
* Use a program to decrease the frequency of the video card
* Buy an extra battery if your laptop supports it.

Advice for long term

If the above measures help you immediately, there are some good tips that follow them to ensure less damage to the battery throughout its functioning, because it is well known that the autonomy of a battery decreases in time because of aging and of its use. These measures are:

* Read the instructions about prolonged storage of the battery when not in use.
* Format the battery at least once a month (discharge it and charge it completely) and try to always use the battery in full cycles (avoid to partially discharge the battery and start recharging it when the battery still has power).
* Use the battery more often, do not use your laptop based only on the home or office outlet.

A few years ago when the laptops were not that popular as they are today, hardly you could find anythingto have  some decent prices and offer you an autonomy of more than 3 hours. A good choice in those times could have been Asus F3J, which is now considered old and outdated, which came equipped with a 9 cell battery which could get an autonomy of 3 hours and a bit, in ideal conditions.

Much has changed in the meantime. With the release of new netbooks, the portable computers with large autonomy became accessible to all. Slowly they overcome the barrier of 5 hours, then 8, 10 and now they offer more than 12 hours without you connecting the computer to a wall outlet. Asus UL30A brags to offer its buyers 12 hours of functioning only on batteries.

For the persons who used numerous laptops during the recent years, which had various specifications and features, the 12 hour functionality make them smile easily. For the things to be truly amazing, the laptop should run an operating system like Windows 7 with ease, the computer’s screen brightness to be set at its maximum, you to be able to stay connected permanently to the Internet (Wi-Fi or 3G), run basic applications (Internet browser, Microsoft Word, Yahoo Messenger, Winamp – all at the same time) and the battery to last for 12 hours.

I wonder if Asus UL30A ensures a 12 hour autonomy for these wishes. Probably no, because the reality does not equalise the facts and when it does, you should write this down and remember it. The promoted figures are obtained under “ideal” operating conditions (which means the computer doesn’t run almost anything at all, the screen’s brightness is set to minimum, the Wi- Fi is closed and so on).

A figure of 8-9 hours would probably be a real thing (given that very few other portables can brag with something like this), and the tests available on the Internet confirm this reality.

The problem is that we never understand this strategy: why would you lie to me that the laptop has an autonomy of X hours when you actually get somewhere around three-quarters of this, if not worse? Why would you lie to me like this? Because every manufacturer does?

It would be preferable to tell me that the laptop offers a real autonomy of X hours under normal operating conditions, with emphasis on the real and tested autonomy. Thus you will differentiate from others who offer the same product, and I will know what to buy and I will not be disappointed when I’ll receive the product.

And I won’t tell others that the X hours you mention the laptop provides are in fact a big fat lie and I will not return the product within the limit of 30 days guaranteed by the law (like it happens in the civilized countries). Do the marketers believe us so stupid that we trust their figures?

However, returning to Asus UL30A, this is a toy that is worth to buy (the price is OK for what this ultra-portable laptop has to offer). When talking about marketing a good product, you simply have to provide its technical specifications , if you are one of its producers or someone who deals with that product’s marketing. Don’t lie, because this will get back to you.