More power to the notebook
Does the following scenario sound familiar? You are at your favorite coffee shop checking your e-mail on your Wi-Fi-enabled laptop. Just as you get to the inbox, you get that dreaded critical low battery warning, heralding the end of your notebook's battery power. Exasperated at the paltry battery life of your machine, you quickly save your work as your battery breathes its last. There is nothing more frustrating than running out of juice on a laptop while on the move. It comes as no surprise that laptops lose their allure rather quickly when you are constantly on the lookout for a power source wherever you go. Although there are a multitude of applications available online that claim to enhance laptop battery life, most are gimmicky - some going as far as to state a 200 per cent increase in battery life. Of course, this is far from the truth. Examples of such applications include Dachshund Software's Battery Doubler and Notebook Hardware Control. Sure, you can purchase extended battery packs, but by just applying the simple changes outlined below, you can easily crank out some more time from your laptop without having to burn a hole in your pocket.
A profile for every reason
One of the most effective ways of optimizing your laptop for battery power is to create separate hardware profiles for different usage scenarios. A hardware profile essentially tells your operating system which devices to start when you power up your computer, or which settings to use for your devices. By disabling the devices that you don't use very often, the drivers for these will not be loaded and you can save on small amounts of power consumption, adding up extra minutes per charge.
So, for instance, if you are on a long transatlantic flight, you can safely disable your modem, network adapter, unused USB ports, 1394 FireWire devices, card reader, wireless and even DVD drive to get the most out of your notebook's battery. On the other hand, while at the coffee shop, you can create a profile that lets you use an external mouse, USB flash drive and wireless, while disabling your modem, network adapter, card reader and DVD drive.
To configure Microsoft Windows XP on your laptop for such scenarios, right-click 'My Computer', select 'Properties' and click the 'Hardware' tab, followed by 'Hardware Profiles'. If you haven't created a profile before, the only listing under 'Available hardware profiles' will be a profile (currently in use) named 'Profile 1'. To create a new profile, click 'Copy', type a name for the new hardware profile, and click OK.
Next, restart and from the list that appears during start-up, select the newly created profile. This lets the computer use the new profile as the current profile and you can now proceed with customizing it, which is done by enabling or disabling devices in the hardware device manager console. (Note that this procedure will also work under Windows 98, ME and 2000.)
To enable or disable devices, right-click 'My Computer', select 'Properties' and click the 'Hardware' tab, followed by 'Device Manager' (or enter 'devmgmt.msc' in the 'Run' dialog box and click 'OK'). Now, say if you wish to disable the network adapter, click the plus (+) sign next to 'Network adapters' to expand the section; then right-click the adapter, and select 'Disable'. Repeat the same process for other devices that you will not use.
Seize the power
Prudent use of the power management features incorporated into Windows can help you squeeze out several extra minutes, too. To access these, from 'Control Panel', select 'Power Options' (or enter 'powercfg.cpl' in the 'Run' dialog box and click 'OK'). In 'Power schemes', first ensure you've selected 'Portable/Laptop'. Most laptops offer two modes -'Standby' and 'Hibernate1 - to preserve battery power while retaining the ability to resume normal operations in the shortest possible time. 'Standby' works by switching your laptop to a low-power state by disabling the monitor and hard drive. Upon powering up again, you can quickly resume all activities. However, everything is stored in memory and not saved to disk. This is why it isn't recommended for extended time periods. On the other hand, 'Hibernate' works by saving your computer's state on the hard drive before shutting down. Although it takes longer than 'Standby', unlike the latter, it doesn't consume any power during hibernation and is perfect for shutting down your laptop if you are away for a few hours.
To activate the hibernation option, click the 'Hibernate' tab in 'Power Options' and tick the checkbox. Next, click the 'Power Schemes' tab. You basically need to have the display and hard disks turn off and system shut down after a certain amount of time, so you can use values like five minutes for the display and ten or fifteen minutes for the hard drive, depending on what works best for you.
While you are at it, you may want to adjust your 'Alarms' settings to low values as well - say five per cent for the low battery alarm and one per cent for the critical battery alarm. This is mainly because, by default, many laptops shut down when there's still some juice left in the tank.
A dimmer display
One of the biggest power drains on your laptop is its display. By toning down the display brightness to a lower level, you can substantially increase battery runtime. To configure the display, start by putting the display brightness to the lowest option, and increase it one step at a time until you find the lowest setting that you're comfortable with. Try reading some text just to make sure. Other ways, such as lowering the screen resolution and colour depth (16-bit as opposed to 32-bit), can help, too.
Keep it clean
Every few months, disconnect your laptop battery and wipe the contacts with a cloth and alcohol-based cleanser to ensure optimal power transmission between the laptop and the battery. Also, clean out any grit that may have accumulated on the laptop underside, especially near the vents, as dust can clog the cooling fan and overheat the laptop.
Additionally, consider removing the battery whenever you are not plugged in. Not only will this preserve charge cycles, but it will also help keep the battery temperature down, thereby lowering the overall ageing process.
Spin down the drive
Another handy, but often neglected, tip involves regularly defragmenting your laptop's hard drive. The Windows Disk Defragmentation process basically optimises the placement of all data on the drive so that it has to spin less often and whenever an application makes a request for certain data, it can be found faster, without taxing the battery much. More disk spinning means more power consumption.
Unused applications
Having a lot of start-up items load every time you power on your computer can significantly burden the CPU and consequently, decrease your laptop battery life. To disable any extraneous programs that you may have at start-up, click 'Run' and type in 'msconfig'. In the window that appears, click the 'Startup' tab and clear the checkbox beside any unnecessary items, such as MSN Messenger, QuickTime, Google Talk, etcetera.
Also, remember to disable or reconfigure the AutoSave feature built-into applications like Microsoft Word and Excel. By saving data at regular intervals, your hard drive is used more often, slowly increasing power output from the battery.
More memory
Adding more memory to your laptop, especially if you run memory-intensive programs, helps saves power by reducing your system's reliance on the virtual memory file on your hard disk. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient than RAM.
