Batteries: Rants, Raves, and Good Ideas Shared

Holy battery life, Robin! Nothing like finding yourself in the midst of an online brouhaha. I've just read hundreds of posts about my Conserving Battery Life post, which as many of you guessed, was written to point out a very simple technique and to help folks overcome "Control Panel" fear. 

That said, there are some of you who were kind enough to share your best battery conservation ideas and I'm going to attempt to summarize the power of the people. Together I hope that we can help a few folks out.

So, let's take some of the most constructive suggestions (and there were many) in this post and in my next post I'll answer questions that still remain unanswered.

Cody got the ball rolling with a list of things to help conserve battery life.

1. Turn down the brightness on your computer: With slight variation from one PC to another there's usually a keyboard Fn key with some sort of sunshine icon that you can toggle up and down to control brightness. This is by far the easiest power-saving tip to implement, and it can be a real saver, provided, as one reader pointed out, that you don't need the bright screen to see!

2. Lower the processor speed: I consider this one best for more advanced users. Some laptops lower the processor speed automatically when you run them on batteries. (And don't confuse lowering the processor speed, as one reader did, with the Update Speed View on the Windows Task Manager. All that does is change how often the Task Manager's view of the processes running on your computer get updated. While it may save a bit of battery life, it's pretty minimal.)

3. Don't use a screensaver: Disabling your screensaver can save some battery life if your notebook case is open and the screen is on. To turn off your screensaver select Display Options from the Control Panel and open the Screensaver tab. Jacobslat suggests changing the desktop color to black and not using any fancy wallpaper. These changes can also be accessed under the Display Options on the Control Panel.

4. Set hibernate or standby mode to turn on automatically: That way, they'll engage after a time that you specify. The instructions in my last post will guide you to the relevant screen.

5. Disable anything you won't need: Jeffery D. suggests disabling your wireless LAN and any Bluetooth devices or peripherals you're not using. Most PCs have a button the keyboard that toggles the wireless LAN off and on but you can do it through software on your task bar as well. You should unplug external mice, flash drives, and other peripherals, too. Bpmaharana concurs and cautions you not to play CDs or DVDs, and suggests disabling virus-checking and other services that wear down your battery by springing to life and accessing your disk. A number of you mentioned video games; they are notorious for accessing the hard drive, which runs down your battery.

6. Buy a second battery: Rj12621 opts for the simple solution of either buying a second battery or purchasing an AC Power converter. Here's a Dell version of a Universal Adapter. Captain Ahab goes first class all the way and points out that many airlines now have power sockets under the seat that you can plug into (not in many in coach class yet). He also suggests charging up when changing planes, though he suggests the lounges in Admiral's Club or other mileage program which may be a bit rich for some blood. They have electric outlets out in the airport proper, you jus have to keep your eyes peeled. (The bathroom outlets by the sinks work in a pinch.)

7. Use shareware: Kc8hpa uses a piece of software to monitor his hardware, called Notebook Hardware Control. It lets him monitor and control the processor's speeds, chip voltage, fan speeds, hardrive, and more.

But reader's questions about whether to do long- or short-cycle charges, take your battery out when you're plugged in, take your battery out if you're leaving your machine for a while, always do a full discharge, and so on depend on what sort of battery your laptop uses. So stay tuned or chime in.