The life of your laptop battery will depend on a couple of factors. One of the more important ones is the number of times that the battery is cycled through charging and discharging. Consequently, the capacity of the battery (milliamp-hours) and the amount of power that is consumed by the laptop will directly relate to the amount of cycling that the battery will undergo. Since we want to minimize this cycling as much as possible, it is recommended to buy an OEM or replacement laptop battery with a high mAh and to reduce the power required by the notebook.

The best and easiest way to reduce power consumption is to use the laptop's software utility program and maximize the power consumption settings. The following represent some options that may be included in your utility's power management software, and some are additional things that you should consider.

  • Lower the brightness of the display. The LCD or plasma screen is the laptops hungriest energy component. Simply lowering its' brightness level will lower the laptop's energy demand.
  • Close any programs that are not being used and try to avoid running multiple programs at the same time. This will free up some RAM and lessen the burden of the CPU.
  • Disconnect external unused devices and peripherals and disable internal devices that aren't being used. This can be done from Windows Device Manager.
  • Add more random access memory (RAM) to minimize the system's virtual memory requirements and utilization of the laptop's hard disk.
  • Consider the initial purchase or upgrade to a faster hard drive to reduce the drive's 'seek times' and power consumption.
  • While on the road use an AC or Car adapter whenever possible.
  • Ensure that the laptop's CMOS battery is charged to avoid drawing power from the laptop battery. This is a button type battery, much like a watch battery, inside the laptop. An indication that the CMOS battery needs to be replaced is the inability of your laptop to maintain its' date and time.
  • Clean the battery contacts with isopropyl alcohol or use a pencil eraser to ensure a good connection.
  • Make sure that the laptop's cooling vents are not blocked when you are using it and used compressed air to clean the vents if they are collecting dust. This will help lower the battery's temperature and minimize fan use. High temperatures cause the battery to discharge faster.
  • Cycle NiCD and NiMH fully (from discharge to full charge) to reduce "memory effect".
  • Use the Hibernate or suspend modes rather than shutting the system off and restarting.
  • Avoid energy resource hogging activities like watching movies and playing games unless you are on AC power.