Battery life ruining your life? We’ve all been there, and sometimes we simply can’t afford to accept the fate of our dying laptops. Sometimes, we need to milk as much time as we can possibly get with our precious little devices.

There are some things you can do to buy more time with your laptop – now you can make that final deadline, or respond to that important email before it’s too late! Some of these tips will show you how to stretch out your dying battery at that very moment, while others are preventative tips that will help keep your battery from dying as quickly as it normally does.

Short Term Battery-Stretching Strategies

1. Battery Saver Mode

Activate your laptop’s Battery Saver Mode, or Eco Mode to prevent your battery from draining so quickly. Battery saver mode is designed to automatically make changes to give you a few more precious minutes of laptop use. While it won’t stop your battery from dying, it will certainly lessen some of the power consumption being used.

2. Disable Unused Devices/Ports

The best way to save battery life is to turn things off that aren’t being used. Here is a list of things you can turn off that will save battery life:

• Wifi
• Bluetooth
• Graphics Processors
• Unused Optical Drives
• USB ports (eg. USB mouse)

Again, make sure you don’t need any of these things first, and don’t forget to turn them back on when you’ve charged your laptop!

3. Adjust Your Settings

One of the most obvious lifesavers when dealing with a draining battery is to adjust settings. Keyboard backlights are useless if you’re not typing in the dark, so if that’s the case then turn your backlighting off completely! Another easy setting to change is the screen brightness. Lower the brightness as low as you can tolerate. This can be annoying, but it will save you in the end. Finally, if you aren’t using sound, turn that off too.

Long Term Battery-Conserving Strategies 

1. Take Care of Your Battery 

The first and most simple way to protect your laptop battery life is to take care of the physical battery itself. If your system has a removable battery, make sure you don’t damage the contacts. These contacts connect to the laptop and if they are dirty or damaged they will not perform properly, resulting in a quickly dying battery. You can clean contacts with cotton swabs and alcohol.

2. Upgrade

Upgrading your system will not only improve your laptop’s overall speed, but some maintenance and tune-ups may increase battery life as well. Make sure to stay on top of your system’s needed upgrades. Defragmenting and decluttering your hard drive is a good start, and Windows 7 and 8 both have tools that defragment your drive on a regular basis.

3. Battery Backup

Finally, the best way to ensure you won’t get stuck with a quickly draining battery is to bring a physical backup battery. For laptops with a removable battery, the best option is to bring a second battery with you. You can also try an external battery pack. These can be ordered directly from the manufacturer, or from third-party websites.

Don’t get caught with a low battery the next time you desperately need your laptop, make sure you follow these tips to ensure long lasting battery life, and great battery stretching strategies. 

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