Here are a few basic tips to maintaining the lifespan of your laptop battery and maximising usage when it is required.
If your laptop is a few years old and the battery has not been maintained, there may be no way to revive it.
Maintain Lifespan
If you mostly use your laptop in the same place and it’s connected to the mains all the time, it is a good idea to remove the battery from the computer and run on mains only.
However if you are removing the battery for any length of time make sure it is charged to 100% (or as full a charge as it will take). A battery with say 30% charge will deteriorate if left without a charge for long periods.
Some newer Ultrabook style laptops do not have a removable battery. In this case, to prolong the lifespan of the battery – disconnect the mains plug from time to time and run the machine on it’s battery and run it down. The battery will maintain better health if it is used then fully recharged instead of being constantly charged.
The heat that is emitted from the laptop charging it’s battery for long periods can shorten the lifespan of the battery, killing the cells. Furthermore, the recharge / drain cycle isn’t good for the battery if connected to the mains all the time.
Get Longer On A Full Charge
The next step is maximising the length of time you actually get on a full charge. This is very easy to manage.
Simply Right-Click on the battery icon on the taskbar (bottom right of the screen near the clock). In Power Options you can make adjustments as to how the computer should perform whether on Plugged In or Battery Mode. Even select Power Saver mode when you need to run on the battery for long spells.
Dimming the screen brightness can vastly improve the length of time your computer will run on a full charge. If Wifi and Bluetooth are not required – switch these off. These adapters use a lot of power.
Another tip – although not as common now: Let’s say you want to watch a film from a DVD to kill time at the airport etc. Instead of playing from the DVD disc – copy the film onto an SD card. Play the film from the SD card. This cuts down on moving parts from the disc drives, adding perhaps another hour onto the cycle.
All computers either have a Wifi button or by holding FN key and pressing the F key with the Wifi symbol – this will enable/disable Wifi. New Windows 8 laptops all have Flight Mode for this purpose.
So the same principles apply for for laptops as other rechargeable devices. That is to run the battery right down sometimes and give it a full recharge. And try and avoid leaving it plugged in charging for weeks on end.