Windows - How to save battery life on your laptop

Windows - How to save battery life on your laptop

Identifying the components that consume power:

Electronic and mechanical components consume energy (electricity). This include most of the hardware:

• Harddisk
• DVD reader
• Screen
• Motherboard and the processor

You should also keep in mind that resource intensive programs tends to rapidly drop the battery life of your laptop.

E.g: Running a 3D game requires more CPU, Graphics and Memory resources that running a simple text editor.

 How to reduce power consumption:

• Screen brightness can be adjusted.
• Adjust the Power options of Windows
• Instead of shutting down your laptop when not in use,simply put it to sleep or enable the Hibernate mode.

Disconnect any unnecessary peripherals (mouse, external hard drive,...) 

• Defragment your hard drive regularly (unless you are using a SSD). Less the hard disk is fragmented.
• Close any unnecessary programs running in the background.
• Keep the temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it is properly cooled down.

Disable unnecessary features

It is important to disable unnecessary programs and services.

• Disable unnecessary services, especially the Indexing Service. This service require lots of disk access and CPU resources.
• Reduce the number of programs launched at startup.
• Change the theme of Windows:Use the standard/basic theme.
• Disable visual effects (animations, transition effects). 3D effects and transparency requires more computing resources.
• Disable ClearType.
• Mute the sound of your laptop (when audio is not required).
• Avoid using animated screensavers.
• Turn off WiFi and Bluetooth when not in use

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