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If you find yourself with no electrical adapter or power source and need your battery to operate for as long as possible, here are a few tips you can try when your notebook computer is in battery mode:

• Use the notebook’s power management system – In Microsoft Windows the “Power Options” power management application can be found inside the Control Panel. In the Power Options Properties tab select the “Portable/Laptop” power scheme. Many notebook manufactories also provide their own custom power management applications, which help to optimize power usage and extend battery time.

• Turn down the display brightness – You can lower the LCD brightness level to use less energy. In fact a lower brightness level also strains the eyes less and causes less fatigue.

• Close any unused applications – Applications are a burden on the system and require energy to run. Closing any unused applications will reduce that burden and any energy consumption down the line.

• Remove any unused PC Cards or USB devices from your notebook – These devices require energy even when they sit idle, so removing them can help to extend your notebook’s battery time.

• Disable Wireless LAN or Bluetooth network adapter when not in use – Ditto for the Wireless LAN or Bluetooth network adapters.

• Increase system memory – Your computer stores data for use by the CPU in system memory or as virtual memory in the hard drive. Increasing system memory helps to reduce the system’s reliance on the hard drive, which uses more
energy than system memory.

• Reduce unnecessary optical drive operation/activity – Avoid activities that require your optical drive to operate constantly, such as listening to CDs.

• Avoid graphics intensive applications – The notebook system will run in a high performance settings when using these applications, causing the battery to run down at a very quick rate.

Laptop Battery Maintenance Tips

Almost all notebooks today utilize rechargeable Lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries. Lithium Ion provides many benefits over earlier Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) or Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) Batteries, including less mass, better performance, and insusceptibility to the so-called “memory effect”. Despite these benefits you can maximize your battery’s lifespan by following these maintenance tips:

• New batteries must be fully charged before use – To put your battery in optimum condition for long-term usage, please fully charge the battery before its first use. Very importantly as well, for the first 3 charge cycles, always fully charge before use and fully discharge before recharging.

• Calibrate the battery every few months – Almost all notebook batteries are created with an internal microprocessor, which provides an estimate of battery conditions such as number of charges, discharges, full charge capacity and cycle charge count. The full charge capacity will become a little inaccurate after a few months and calibrating it can help restore the battery’s performance.

• Some notebooks provide calibration tools in the BIOS or a Windows application. If your notebook provides either of them, you can use them.

Laptops tend to lose their charm quickly when you’re constantly looking for the nearest power outlet to charge up. How do you keep your battery going for as long as possible? Here are 15 easy ways to do so.

1. Defrag regularly – The faster your hard drive does its work – less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.

2. Dim your screen – Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.

3. Cut down on programs running in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn’t crucial when you’re on battery.

4. Cut down external devices – USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.

5. Add more RAM – This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.

6. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD – As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse. Even having one in the drive can be power consuming. They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used. Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.

7. Keep the battery contacts clean – Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.

8. Take care of your battery – Exercise the Battery. Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time. Once charged, you should at least use the battery
at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is only for older batteries with memory effects)

9. Hibernate not standby – Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.

10. Keep operating temperature down – Your laptop operates more efficiently when it’s cooler. Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or refer to some extra tips by LapTopMag.com.

11. Set up and optimize your power options – Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect).

12. Don’t multitask – Do one thing at a time when you’re on battery. Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3’s, set your mind to one thing only. If you don’t you’ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!

13. Go easy on the PC demands – The more you demand from your PC. Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD. If you’ve got a single battery charge – pick your priorities wisely.

14. Get yourself a more efficient laptop – Laptops are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.

15. Prevent the Memory Effect – If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want to prevent the ‘memory effect’ – Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.

Bonus Tip #1: Turn off the autosave function. MS-Word’s and Excel’s autosave functions are great but because they keep saving regular intervals, they work your hard driver harder than it may have to. If you plan to do this, you may want to turn it back on as the battery runs low. While it saves battery life in the beginning, you will want to make sure your work is saved when your battery dies.

Bonus Tip #2: Lower the graphics use. You can do this by changing the screen resolution and shutting off fancy graphic drivers. Graphics cards (video cards) use as much or more power today as hard disks.

Organizations servicing portable equipment need simplified battery testing. The difficulty of testing batteries is brought on by the proliferation of batteries, both in volume and diversity of models. With most standalone battery test equipment, servicing batteries with conventional methods is complex and time consuming. This task will only get more difficult as new battery models are added, almost weekly. New chemistries are being introduced which have different service requirements.

Manufacturers of battery test equipment are responding by introducing software packages that run on a PC. Many new systems enable operating the battery analyzers through a PC. Such products bring battery maintenance within reach of the untrained operator.

Cadex Batteryshop┢ is a system that integrates with the Cadex 7000 Series battery analyzers. Although the analyzers are stand-alone units that can think on their own, the software overrides the analyzer to adjust the settings, and stores the test results obtained from the batteries. Figure 12-2 illustrates such a battery maintenance system.

Here are examples of how a computer-assisted battery testing system can simplify operation. To service a battery with Cadex Batterystore, for example, the user selects the battery model from the database, clicks the mouse, and the analyzer is automatically configured to the correct battery parameters. Programming the analyzer by scanning the bar code identifying the battery’s model number is also possible.

1. Power down all nonessential functions. Switch it off if you’re not using it. Many business travelers already know that you don’t want to take the DVD player for a spin on the plane, and that every time you hit “save” it can set the hard-drive whirring, which devours even more power. “But users often also forget to turn off their wireless card when they are no longer using it but are still using their computer,” notes Mike Fuller, executive vice president of PC Laptops, a Sandy, Utah, laptop manufacturer. “When the wireless card is on, it still continually searches for networks.” In Windows XP, click on “Power Options” in your control panel. It allows you to reduce the power consumption of any number of your computer devices or of your entire system.

2. Stay out of extreme temperatures. The technology that powers you battery isn’t terribly complicated. But it’s important to understand a little bit about the chemistry behind batteries, and how that can affect your work. Specifically, temperatures can affect the performance of your battery. It’s best to use (and especially charge) your batteries at room temperatures. Extreme conditions can drain your battery quickly. Also, avoid partial charges and use the battery until it is dead. Battery experts liken partial charges — and discharges — to eating a cup of lard every day. It significantly shortens your battery’s life. Considering that a lithium-ion battery can explode if it’s improperly used, it could also shorten your life.

3. Let your laptop do the saving. Not every computing device handles a power source in the same way. Some of the more sophisticated laptops, which are designed with business travelers in mind, are misers when it comes to using power. And that’s a good thing — if you can remember to take advantage of it. “Most users make the mistake of simply not choosing to use a product’s built-in ability to conserve battery life,” says Dan Coffman, a senior product manager for PC manufacturer ViewSonic. How do you harness your PC’s built-in ability to save? Consult your user manual. Often, calibrating your laptop is as easy as double-clicking on the battery icon in the toolbar.

4. Always, always carry a spare device that uses batteries. How obvious is that? Well, if you’re trying to keep under the onerous new airline weight-limits, it isn’t. But as Rick Thompson, director of engineering at Valence Technology in Austin, Texas, observes, “the availability of ‘free’ power outside of your hotel room is not predictable.” That’s a nice way of saying it. In fact, I sometimes think airport terminals, car-rental facilities and hotels try to hide the power outlets from us to keep us from accessing their free power. Thompson recommends a system that can simultaneously charge a second portable device such as a cell phone or PDA, allowing you to multitask your battery operations.