The battery counter is that hourglass that marks the time we have available to continue with what we are doing on the laptop. Generally, we work connected to the electrical supply, however, when we do not have one available, the battery must come to the rescue. However, we may sometimes need a few extra minutes to finish the task we're on. For this reason, we want to show you some tricks to save the battery of the laptop that will allow you to extend the activity time a little more.
This component tends to degrade very quickly and in that sense, it is also very useful to know these tricks in order to extend our use of the computer for a few additional minutes.
Good practices to take care of the battery
As we mentioned before, the battery is usually the fastest degrading component in laptops and this is due to multiple factors. In them they are involved from the lack of good practices by users, through problems of the electrical network that usually affect its capacity and operation, to the quality of the battery itself. This is what means that, after little more than a year, we have barely 20 minutes of activity without alternating current.
Although there are still some actions that we can carry out in order to achieve additional minutes, it is important to consider the good treatment of the battery to extend its useful life. In this sense, we recommend not exhausting it until the equipment is turned off, nor charging it to 100%, on the contrary, charge it in semi-cycles. This means that, you can connect it when it is at 20% and then disconnect it when it reaches 95%. In this way, the battery will be less stressed and can preserve its useful life.
On the other hand, if you usually play on the laptop, you should take into account that the equipment will heat up more than it does with other processes.. High temperatures directly affect battery performance and therefore it is best to use a cooling pad or remove the battery while gaming.
Tips to save laptop battery
Reduces shine
The laptop battery has the difficult burden of maintaining power to all computer components. In that sense, depending on their functions, some may consume more or less energy than others, and the screen is among what consumes the most. In this way, our first recommendation is to lighten this work for the battery, occupying a brightness level that is not too high, adapting it to the environment where you are..
To run the first of our laptop battery saving tricks, we'll start by going into Windows Settings. To do this, press the Windows+I key combination and in the window that appears, click on “System”.
This will open by default in the “Screen” which is precisely what interests us. There you will see the section “Brightness and Color” where you will find a bar to adjust the brightness of the screen.
Reduce it to the most suitable point both for your eyesight, and to reduce energy consumption to a certain extent.
remove peripherals
If you need to get a few minutes of activity on your laptop, then unplug all the peripherals you're using. As we mentioned before, the battery must distribute energy for absolutely everything to work, so if you have your mobile connected, a camera or even a mouse, this will also represent a weight for the component.. In that sense, the best way to reduce consumption is precisely to remove all this and use only the native hardware of the laptop.
Disable devices you're not using
Laptops incorporate cameras, microphones, bluetooth and other additional devices that, if they are not in use, it would be better to disable. The idea is that the battery is concentrated exactly in the important components in order to extend its activity time. In that sense, check which are those devices that you will not be using and disconnect them via software.
Doing this in Windows is quite simple and for this, we must resort to the Device Manager. We achieve this by right clicking on the Start Menu and then entering the section identified with the same name that we mentioned before.
This will display a small window where you will see all the devices connected to the laptop. Go to the camera, for example, right click and then click "Disable".
Immediately, you will hear the same sound as when we disconnect a USB, which means that the component in question has stopped working and therefore consuming energy. If you want to enable it again, you must follow exactly the same process that we discussed.
Turn on Windows Battery Saver
Since Window 10, the Microsoft operating system incorporates a battery saving mode that puts the computer in low consumption. What it does is disable functions such as Bluetooth and wireless connections, although you can enable Wi-Fi if you are using it. However, it is an excellent alternative to complement all the actions we took previously.
To activate it, enter the Windows Settings by pressing the key combination Windows + I and then enter “System".
On the new screen, go to the section “Battery” and there you will see the “Battery Saver” section with the button to activate it.
Check the programs that are active
Running programs also support their activity on the battery, considering that they impact the operation of the processor, RAM memory and other components. In that sense, it is necessary that we pay attention to the applications that are active, in order to get rid of those that we are not using and reduce the work of the processor.
Therefore, check the taskbar for applications in the background and close those that you have open and that you will not use this day.
Another way to do it, although it requires knowing a little more about the system, is to go to the Task Manager. There you will see absolutely all the processes that are running at the moment, however, you must move with caution so as not to close one that you are occupying or that is important. Although, when we try to end a core Windows process, we will be presented with a notification.
Pay attention especially to Google Chrome processes that, after closing the application, usually remain active consuming resources. Additionally, an interesting trick to know the impact of the process on the battery is to look at the tab that is located next to "Network" identified as "Energy Consumption".
If you click on it, it will be organized from highest to lowest or vice versa showing the level of consumption that each one has.
Use the native browser
Our last recommendation within the tricks to save the battery of the laptop is very interesting and it is about the use of the browser. If you are doing some task on the internet and you want to extend the battery charge, then start using the native browser, that is, Microsoft Edge.
According to what Microsoft indicates on its support site, tests indicate that with Edge the battery has 36% to 53% more performance than with Opera or Google Chrome. On that note, keep this app up-to-date with your log-in data to the sites you commonly use, so it can be your backup browser when your battery is low.