Laptop batteries are
designed specifically for different laptops brand as well as models.
Today laptops are powered by lithium ion batteries. Lithium ion
batteries are lighter, have a better power-to-weight ratio,have a
longer usable life, can hold a charge longer, and do not have the
memory effect to fail prematurely.
Lithium ion batteries(such as
Dell Inspiron B130 Battery and
dell precision m60 battery )
are also inexpensive to manufacture as compared to the earlier
generation of nickel metal hydride batteries. The only shortcoming
about lithium ion batteries is as they contain lithium salt dissolved
in a highly flammable solvent, there are chances of overhead which can
result in short-circuits or even blow up in flames.
It is a common fact that all
laptop batteries have
provision for limited time of power supply. A good bargain is to check
the battery power while buying a notebook. Here is one instant tip to
optimize the battery settings in accordance with the energy saving mode
of your notebook. These settings will put the hard disk into sleep mode
whenever the workload is less and it will reduce the notebook
microprocessor performance in order to maximize its battery life.
From the system preferences mode of your laptop, select view menu,
then choose energy saver option from view menu. Right click on show
details option and choose battery power from the pop-up menu. Finally
choose longest battery life from the energy settings pop-up menu.
Tips to optimise your notebook batteries are described in the following:
It is a good investment to add more memory to your laptop as it saves
battery power by reducing Windows’ dependence on the virtual memory
swap file on your hard disk.
It is better to keep your laptop on standby mode when not in use for
certain amount of time. Standby mode ensures all current info is saved
in RAM with minimum consumption of battery power.
Charge your laptop battery frequently with a battery charger or
AC adapter.
It is very important to clean your battery’s metal contacts every
couple of months to make it dust free. You can use a cloth moistened
with rubbing alcohol to clean your laptop battery.
Try to set the screen brightness of
the LCD panel of your laptop to the lowest comfortable level as very bright screen tends to consume more power from your battery.
Similarly it is better to get rid of the outer peripherals such as
printers or digital cameras as they can still draw power from your
laptop battery even when they are not used.
Turn of the unused features and technologies of your laptopo which
are not frequently usable. For example, it is better to eject the CD or
DVD when you are not using them as the optical drive has the tendency
of reading CD or DVD it finds very often and this process consume extra
battery power.
To save power, it is good idea to turn off the AirPort, Wi-Fi, IR
radios and Bluetooth option when it is not required to use. Virus scan
should be set only during the time you are usually plugged in as
full-disk virus check by the hard drive and CPU consumes additional
power from battery.
Opt for the power console applet to customize the power profiles on
your laptop. Do not worry in case your notebook does not have power
console applet option for most of the operating systems (starting from
windows 98) have Power Options utility in Control Panel.
Turning off or at least disabling the PC Cards, FireWire devices and
USB when not in use also saves battery power. In fact, disabling modem,
network cards and USB ports consumes less battery power even when they
are on. These devices are easily disabled in device manager.
You can use power saver option of your operating system to adjust the
CPU processing power. Optimum CPU processes consume additional battery
power and hence should be avoided if not required. Stop the auto start
applications on your laptop, so that your laptop`s CPU can be stopped
from doing unnecessary work.
With the above mentioned handy tips, you can truly increase the battery
performance of your laptop.
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