Extending Laptop Battery Life

Ka Edong mentioned about his friend who was able to extend his laptop battery life up to 9 freakin’s hours!

In the last 7 days that I’ve been spending most of my time at coffee shops and wifi hotspots to do some work, I found it very uncomfortable to work because of the restrictions on my laptop’s battery life. Two and a half hours on full charge can’t do you much really.

So, I’m eager to learn how Ka Edong’s friend tweaked his laptop to last that long and I’m glad he posted the power-saving settings just a couple of hours ago.

Here are some additional tips I found online:

• Rechargeable batteries will give you their longest charge when you’ve fully discharged and recharged them several times in a row. It may be a pain, but a day or so before your trip, let your laptop run until the system shuts down. Then recharge it and, if you have time, discharge and recharge it a second time, preferably overnight.
• Save power by turning off wireless networking, removing PC cards and floppy or CD drives when you are not using them.
• Tunr monitor brightness to a comfortable low level and set it to turn off when not in use after 5 minutes.
• Use your laptop’s Hibernate feature instead of shutting down. Standby and Hibernate both save you from having to log off and shut down to save power when you quit using your PC for a few minutes, a few hours, or longer. Many PC users don’t understand the difference between Standby and Hibernate, and when to use each of them. Typically, if you plan to be away from your computer for a short while during your workday, put your computer on Standby, which places your entire system in a low-power state. Hibernate puts PCs into an even deeper sleep than Standby mode. Put your computer in Hibernate when you will be away from the computer for an extended time or overnight.
• Use standby when not actively using your laptop (like talking on the phone or going to the CR). Standby does not automatically save your data like Hibernation before powering down your PC. You should save your documents before putting the computer on Standby. From a user’s point of view, Standby can be compared to a screensaver that starts after 5 minutes or so. The difference is that screensavers don’t reduce noise or save energy. A screensaver doesn’t extend battery life on your laptop—Standby does.
• Turn off the speaker volume or avoid listening to music directly from your laptop. Use your iPod if you have one.
• Avoid connecting other accessories into your laptop like a wirelessmouse, an iPod, USB light, etc.

The next best thing I would like to do is get a secondary laptop battery or maybe one of those cool 8-hour battery extender.