MARC'S TECHNOLOGY BLOG - ARE YOU HUNGRY FOR POWER?
TIPS ON USING TECHNOLOGY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE!
My Laptop Battery is dead. Dead!
You're probably thinking by now that I'm a techno boob, right? Crippled by my McAfee software, having my flash card erased at the airport, etc. It's not been a happy blog so far.
Nonetheless it's true. The thing holds about three and a half minutes of charge. Which is an annoying feature for a portable device. Annoying enough that I've got to replace the thing, which ain't gonna be cheap unfortunately. Bottom end for laptop batteries is around $150, but I'm hoping to get lucky on eBay.
Gotta make this one last. This laptop is the first one I've owned and this is the first dead battery I've had to deal with. I had to do some research to figure out how to make them last. There are lots of ideas out there but I think I've boiled it down to the top 5.
1. Don't let a lithium-ion battery discharge completely. I was kind of surprised by this. I mean, I knew Li-Io batteries don't get the memory like early rechargeables did, but I didn't know it was bad to let them get down to zero. My research said to plug it in to recharge anywhere from 50% depleted to when the computer tells me the charge is low. I'm going to err on the side of closer to 50%.
2. Add More RAM. Nerd alert. Installing more RAM means that the chips will process more information rather than relying on virtual memory. In short, virtual memory is processed with the hard drive, that means the hard drive has to spin and that means power usage and that means the battery has to work harder. That's bad. RAM is cheap. That's good. You should note though that RAM takes power, too. So this tip is really only helpful if you use a lot of virtual memory. Don't know if you use a lot of virtual memory? Then you probably don't. Of course, that being said: See Tip Number 3.
3. Don't run a lot of programs in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, a whole bunch of browser windows, etc, etc, will all force lots of virtual memory to be used and thus eat you battery. This is my bad habit.
4. Keep your laptop cool. You laptop uses exponentially more power when it runs hot. Keep it cool with a fan and clean your air vents with a keyboard cleaner.
5. Defrag. And do it often. Just don't do it when it is on battery power. Defragging your system regularly will keep all your files together on the hard drive and cut down on the demand on your battery power.
Laptop batteries should last about a year. Sadly, that's it. Manufacturers say they are able to increase battery capacity by about 10% a year. Unfortunately, the power demands in new laptops increases by about the same amount every year. So it's a slippery slope.
Of course the number one tip is always to use common sense, stay on plug power as much as you possibly can and be nice to your battery. It is a very sophisticated pieces of technology you are using, it's amazing the thing can run on a battery in the first place!
Got a Tech Tip you would like to share? Please let us know, and we'll post it to this blog!
Happy Browsing!
DEAN'S TEAM TECH EDITOR,
MARC MILBAUER
