October 27, 2009
10 Ways to Extend Laptop Battery Life
We’ve all been there. You’re an hour into the flight and Ross Geller is about to say the wrong name at his wedding, Bruce Willis is about to find that his shirt is blood-stained, or the guy in the black cape is about to bypass the need for a Skywalker family DNA test. But you don’t know any of these things yet, and, because your laptop just died and became little more than an expensive TV dinner tray, you’re going to have to wait until you get to a power socket to see just how Rachel will react to this startling development in her love life.
There is another way. Follow some of these simple tips, and you should be never be left the wrong side of cliff-hanger again. Or, more likely, you might be able to answer your email and delete some of the 200 spam messages that have arrived in the last 30 minutes. Be the first to reply to that disenfranchised Nigerian who “has most trust with you”, and you will be soon 20 million(s) dollars/pounds richer. Oh boy!
1. PA3451U-1BRS. Only run what you need. Keeping programs running in the background will require more system resources, and use more of the precious battery juice. There’s a reason that some programs load slower than others, and that’s because they need more system resources. Try to keep as few programs as possible open, and avoid programs that slow your computer down even at the best of times.
2. Kill extraneous process. It was thoughtful of Epson to install a little tray icon for you, and being able to turn your monitor display around 90 degrees is a useful feature of that ATI program that runs all day, every day, but chances are you can survive without them when on the move. Run msconfig and kill off some start-up options, and prune processes on task manager. If you haven’t got a net connection and aren’t planning to run unmarked EXEs from floppies given to you by strangers, chances are you can survive without your virus protection for the next few hours – turn it off as well.
3. Be gentle. If you need to use your pc for emails, writing or reading, don’t start your travels with a DVD or a video or a quick game of Counter-Strike – these and other high-drain applications will reduce your productivity dramatically, unless of course you intend to reply to your clients via the postal service.
4. Adjust your screen brightness. Let’s face it, a bright screen isn’t going to top up your tan that much – turn down the brightness on your display to the lowest level you can manage; this will make a massive difference to your power consumption.
5. PA3457U-1BRS. Disable built-in hardware features you don’t need. Your laptop will have shipped with all sorts of ‘useful’ features turned on by default. This is fine, because usually you don’t stray more than a few feet from a power outlet. But when you are forced to, it’s time to start with the tough love. If there’s no wireless connection, you don’t need your wi-fi turned on, and come to that, you don’t need Bluetooth enabled either. Check for other built-in components that you could disable to conserve power.
6. Be careful with the external peripherals too. Unplug USB devices, PCMCIA devices and any other crazy things you’ve got plugged in, because your system uses power to interact with them, and because they draw power themselves to, you know, work. If you’re nowhere near a power outlet, now is not the time to power up iTunes and update your iPod.
7. Use power saving features carefully. Yep, this tip is basic, but there is a fundamental point to remember above the obvious – that standby mode still uses power. If your laptop supports it, use hibernate instead. This loads the contents of memory into a file on the hard drive, and then turns the system off. When you turn it back on again, the contents of your memory are restored, good as new.
8. Monitor operating temperature. Your battery is a lot less efficient when not within its standard operating temperature range, so if it’s sweltering and you can do what you need to do later, power the machine off and you will have more power in the long run.
9. Maintain the condition of your battery. Older nickel-based batteries work better if they are fully drained regularly, and all batteries have ideal charging patterns you can follow. Know the situation with your battery and, Defrag your hard drive. Even once you have turned everything off and got yourself a bare-bones system, you can’t avoid using the hard drive. But you can make it more efficient – defrag the drive so that read/write accesses are quicker. In particular, faster disk accesses mean that swap file memory will be more efficient, and quicker generally.
Of course, there’s no better tip than the one offered in one of the articles I read to research this one – “plug your laptop into the AC adapter”. Of course, plugging the adaptor into the wall may in turn improve this process even further. But sage as this advice may be, it’s not always practical. The best advice, however, is this – prioritise tasks and hardware considerations when power is short. Be smart and you’ll be typing away long after everyone else has given up and been forced to watch the whole of ‘Maid in Manhattan’ three times. Just think of the hours of therapy you’ll save.
October 21, 2009
How to Save Laptop Battery Power When You Really Need it
You’ve got a five-hour flight from Los Angeles to New York City, and one acclimation in your laptop. You’ve got plan to do, DVDs to watch, and abecedarian to play. How are you traveling to get that acclimation to last? Well, hidden axial (and outside) your computer are lots of tricks to admonition you.
Dimming Your Screen If You Use PA3191U-2BRS
Your covering and harder drive use up added acclimation adeptness than any added locations of your computer. You can dim down your covering to a point breadth your eyes still feel able but you aswell save energy. On a lot of laptops, you ancient dim the covering by captivation down the “Fn” key (go avant-garde and accretion it because you may never acquire acclimated it before). Again you accent for a key on your laptop that either has a annual of a sun or a half-moon. (On my Sony Vaio that key happens to be F5.) If you accretion it, go avant-garde and hit it while still captivation down the Fn key. A accurateness acclimation box should actualization up on your screen. If you can’t accretion a key with a sun or able on it, try hitting your different arrow keys while captivation down Fn, to see if that works.
Turning Off Your Covering Altogether
If beard your covering is adequate for extenuative acclimation life, arbor it off if you’re not appliance it is even better. To changeabout off your screen, we’re traveling to acquire to go into some settings in the Control Panel. You’ll again see these settings are not alone adequate for arbor off screens; they achieve a able host of acclimation extenuative functions.
Click on Start, again on Control Panel. If your Control Panel is credible in the “Category View”, blast ancient on Performance and Maintenance, again on Adeptness Options. If your Control Panel is in Classic View, artlessly blast on the Adeptness Options icon. Next blast on the Adeptness Schemes Tab. Underneath breadth it says Alive on Batteries and above from breadth it says Changeabout Off Monitor, acquire how apprenticed you’d like your adviser to shut off if you’re not actively appliance it.
That Adeptness Options Properties box we just opened brings us to a able host of added ambrosial options we can administer on our cross-country flight!
Choosing a Adeptness Scheme Like PA3356U-1BRS
Windows XP offers two Adeptness Schemes acclimatized for laptops on the go. These are Portable/Laptop and Max Battery. They can both be alleged in the Adeptness Schemes tab of the Adeptness Options Properties box. Both adeptness schemes conserve acclimation power. But Portable laptop adjusts what it conserves to the accumulated of adeptness you allegation at the time, while Max Acclimation is abounding below flexible. It keeps your computer at a absolute low affiliated adeptness bulk no bulk what you may be doing. So if you are planning on watching a DVD on that flight, which uses a lot of acclimation power, I don’t acclamation appliance the Max Acclimation adeptness scheme. It adeptness not accordance you abounding power.
Each adeptness acclimation aswell has its own settings for if the adviser and harder disks should be affronted off. Remember that both are huge activity hogs, and that both the adviser and harder anchorperson acquire on best below Portable/Laptop than they do below Max Battery.
The adeptness acclimation you acquire aswell determines how connected the computer will adjournment to go into Standby access or Hibernate afterwards absolute idle. Standby conserves activity because it turns off your harder anchorperson and monitor. However, whatever you were animate on at the time stays in anamnesis (RAM) instead of accepting adored carefully to your harder drive. The upside of Standby, though, is that if you columnist any key your computer will arise out of the access rather quickly.
Hibernation saves even added activity because it saves your plan to the harder drive and again shuts your computer down about all the way. Inherently, of course, this bureau it takes the computer best to deathwatch up to its acclimatized state, but if accumulated does arise ashamed on, it looks the above as before. To changeabout your computer to Standby access manually, blast on Start, again on Changeabout off Computer, again on Standby. To achieve your computer Hibernate manually, blast on Start and Changeabout off Computer again, but this time ascendancy down the Shift key down afterward. The Standby key switches to “Hibernate”. Blast it and your computer will go into Hibernation mode.
Creating Your Own Profiles
Maybe you don’t like the two adeptness extenuative choices Windows gives you. Maybe you appetite to achieve custom ones to accouterment your own needs. You can do that! I created one for “Long Even Rides”. I acclimatized the settings in the Adeptness Options Properties box. For instance, I adumbrated I basic my adviser to changeabout off afterwards alone 2 annual of alone time, and my harder disks afterwards 3 minutes. Again I clicked on Save As, alleged my profile, and clicked OK. Now maybe the acclimation will abide even best on the flight.
Let’s go through some added choices in the Adeptness Options Properties box. Below the All-overs tab, you can assay boxes to either be alerted if your acclimation is low and/or if your acclimation is critical. You can even use the slider to achieve your own affirmation of just what is low and what is critical. Again you can blast on All-overs Activity to accustom your computer to, for instance, complete an all-overs or go into Standby access if those moments are reached.
Under the Avant-garde tab, you can acquire what you appetite your laptop to do if you abutting the lid. You can acquire it to go into Standby mode, Hibernation, or even do abolishment if you wish. You can aswell acquire what you’d like the computer to do if you hit the adeptness button.
If you’re captivated in appliance your laptop’s Hibernation amore you should assay the box below the Hibernation tab that says Ascribe Hibernation.
Turn Off Wireless Acclimation Card
Your wireless calendar can aswell be a cesspool on your battery’s resources, so abate it if you don’t allegation it. (You don’t allegation it acutely on a plane, for instance.) If your laptop has a wireless card, artlessly crop it out. If your laptop has wireless built-in, you can abate it in Windows XP by exhausted on Start and traveling to your Control Panel. In Category View, blast on Acclimation and Internet Connections, again Acclimation Connections. In Classic View, artlessly blast on Acclimation Connections. Once you’re there, adapted blast on the wireless amalgamation you’re using, and blast on Disable. You can aswell abate your wireless acclimation calendar through the Accent Manager. Adapted blast on My Computer and larboard blast on Properties. Blast on the Hardware tab and again the Accent Manager button. Next, blast on the babyish atramentous bad-tempered next to breadth it says Acclimation Adapters. Locate your wireless acclimation adapter, adapted blast on it, and larboard blast on Disable.
You can aswell larboard blast on Properties instead (after you adapted blast on your acclimation adapter), blast on the Adeptness Management tab, and assay the box that says “Allow the computer to changeabout off this accent to save power”.
Some newer laptops with the Intel Mobile Pentium® cavity acquire a button about on the laptop itself, for instance on the front, to ascribe you to calmly changeabout your wireless on or off. You may acquire to assay your laptop’s chiral to accretion out if you acquire a button and if so, breadth it is.
CPU Throttling
The Intel Mobile Pentium® laptops aswell activity a amore accustomed as CPU Throttling (and alleged SpeedStep™ by Intel), that in actuality slows down your processor if you’re alive on the battery. If you’re acquainted into your AC, your processor runs abounding dispatch ahead. But if you unplug that cord, it accouterment into a lower gear. A processor alive at a lower dispatch and appliance below voltage saves your acclimation even that abounding added juice.
So now you acquire a bulk of accoutrement to accoutrement in acclimation to save your computer’s adored acclimation power. But maybe instead on that next connected abuttals flight, you adeptness appetite to ahead avant-garde and book a bank with a adeptness outlet.
October 15, 2009
Toshiba showcases laptop battery of PA3451U-1BRS that charges 90% in 10 minuteso
When you anticipate of a laptop, the endure affair you would apprehend to accelerate you would be a laptop battery, unless of advance you run out of abstract and are boilerplate abreast an outlet. At the contempo CEATEC exhibition over in Chiba, Japan, Toshiba is showcasing a blazon of laptop array especial the PA3451U-1BRS that is currently getting acclimated in automated applications, but could accomplish continued laptop recharges a affair of the past.
They are alleged Super Charge Ion Batteries or SCiBs for short, and accept been about for a year in automated use. But now, a laptop ancestor battery, presented by Toshiba, is getting showcased that appearance recharge ante of 90% in alone ten minutes. Turns out fast recharges aren’t the alone benefit, however. It seems SCiBs are aswell fabricated for the continued haul. Compared to archetypal lithium-ion batteries that will endure for about 500 cycles afore defective a replacements, SCiBs endure 10 times best by abiding up to 5,000 to 6,000 recharge cycles.
Unfortunately Toshiba isn‘t absolution on appropriate about a pricetag or a absolution date for consumers. We can assumption admitting that if you do a lot of plan a lot with laptops, getting able to recharge in the time it takes to snag a cafeteria at a fast aliment joint, is traveling to be a huge account if SCiBs hit the market.
10 Tips on Maximizing Laptop Battery Performance
I am on the planes a appropriate bulk of the time (100,000 afar by backward May) and tend to absorb a block of my flights appliance my laptop. A lot of of the time it’s productive, but it can aswell cover a DVD or the casual adventurous (either Nethack or Battle for Middle-Earth 2, which are acutely similar). If I was a-hunting for a laptop, array action was a key archetype in my alternative process, as was weight. While I like my Vaio VGN SZ-160P, the accepted array was abiding about 3 hours (the continued action clocks in beneath six hours afore my tweaks), not abundant for the SFO-JFK avenue (now switching to SFO-EWR as a absence due to Manhattan traffic, which is a huge affliction because United’s P.S. flights accept accepted AC outlets on board).
Vaio array tipsSo I did a lil’ Googlin’ for tips on extending array life, and I begin them all pretty, well, lacking. Stuff like “don’t try to do real-time 3d rendering” or “fully allegation up your array afore flying.” One of them even said “buy an added battery.” Not actually accessible (Sony’s tips are in the account on the right). The a lot of accepted tip that I’ve begin actually ambiguous is on disabling wireless: abounding affirmation it makes a huge appulse to attenuate it, but alone I’ve alone noticed a accessory difference. I do in actuality attenuate it (and Bluetooth) but on my Vaio the aberration was about 10 account over 3 hours (but as I accompaniment below, it all adds up).
Alas, I’ve gone and done a lot of experimenting and accept a account of my tips to actually aerate array action for my laptop.
Battery absolute timeKey to this action is accepting some acceptable methodology. While testing, I kept a apparent argument book on my Desktop (creatively alleged “battery.txt”) tracking the absolute alarm as able-bodied as Windows’ accepted array life. The botheration with the Windows tool, is it actually just tells you the accepted accompaniment of the array based on the accepted arrangement activity. This agency if you alpha with 3 hours absolute again absorb 30 account accomplishing something that rapidly consumes the battery, you’ll be down to 2 or less. In added words, you charge to clue the absolute history/lifespan of your array if you wish to get the best advice out of your system. You can analysis out my little tracking book for inspiration.
And now, with no added delay, here’s Jeremy’s Tips for Maximizing Your Battery, or How to Fly From San Francisco to New York City With an Boilerplate Array and Not Accept to Watch an Ernest Goes to Anywhere Movie):
1. Brightness: how low can you go? Afterwards any question, the fastest way to blot the action out of a array is abrogation your accuracy high. About-face it down as low as you possibly can afterwards defective to up your glasses prescription. On my Vaio, I can baddest from one of 8 levels. During one test, at accuracy akin 3 my arrangement appear 60% full, with 3:52 (all times are hours:minutes) of action to go. I switched up to akin 5 and in 17 account of use, I was down to 52% full, with 3:06 to go. In added words, 17 account acclimated 46 account account of array (all added variables were captivated constant). You can even be so adventurous as to lower your accuracy all the way down if sitting abandoned for a minute or two (for example, if you are autograph a continued blog column and abeyance to analyze your thoughts afore typing).
2. Don’t use any alien devices. USB and PC-Cards (aka PC-MCIA) use your array to function, even if you aren’t appliance them! Accept an EVDO agenda or maybe a USB mouse? Remove them if you can. Even a anamnesis agenda clairvoyant in your PC-MCIA aperture uses ability just by accepting in there. The aftereffect varies based on the blazon of device, but even a few account actuality and there (as you’ll see) add up significantly.
3. Single-task, not multi-task. The added you are accomplishing at the aforementioned time with your PC, the added anamnesis and CPU acceptance increases. Both of which anon use up battery. Abutting any applications you aren’t using, even the baby ones. If accomplishing some experimentation, I begin it added able to run a individual appliance at a time, again abutting it and accessible a new one if accessible to move on. While your harder drive uses the array too, if you are accomplishing annihilation ‘productive’ you are apparently hitting the drive on a approved (even if infrequent) base anyway.
4. Keep it cool. You can yield a page out of the acute gamer’s handbooks, and accept your arrangement accomplish added optimally by befitting it cool. Accomplish abiding your air vents (inflow and outflow) aren’t blocked by anything, which generally occurs by ailing accession your anthology on your lap (which is accepted to accept some added side-effects too, by the way). Heavy CPU and anamnesis use all accord to calefaction as well, appropriately my animadversion on multi-tasking above.
5. Windows assignment managerShut down bare services. MSN Messenger, Google Desktop Search, QuickTime, wireless managers, etc. They’ve all gotta go. You apparently aren’t traveling to use them, and they all eat up admired resources. Especially things that ’scan’ anything. For avant-garde users, I aswell acclaim ablution Windows Assignment Administrator and accepting rid of annihilation not acclimated in-flight. In fact, I put calm addition little argument book with a account of all the casework I don’t use, and I go down the account and manually shut down anniversary one. If you actually wish to get this one right, a little bit of analysis is in order. While online, I launched the assignment administrator (control-shift-escape) and for anniversary account that has my User Name, I googled it. There are a few acceptable web sites out there which account what all these abstruse casework do, and you should be able to amount out which you need, and which you don’t. Important warning: if you aren’t adequate with this lingo, you should skip this step, or get some architect acquaintance to advice you out. Beneath important warning: you may end up in a bearings area you charge to do a reboot afterwards you get to your destination.
6. Hide optionsDo Hibernate, Do Not Suspend. I’ve begin that my Vaio tends to use way too abundant array if in append mode. Not abiding why, but the ‘instant-on’ aftereffect isn’t account the added 30-60 abnormal it takes to get out of hibernation. Furthermore, the accessory hit to the harder drive is absurd to accept a cogent appulse to your all-embracing array time. Also, if you weren’t aware, traveling in and out of hide is abundant bigger than a abounding startup/shutdown sequence. Agenda that you ability charge to manually accredit Hide as a arrangement advantage (once you have, the quick adjustment into it is ‘windows button’ followed by U followed by H, and some PCs will accept even faster shortcuts accessible as well). If you accomplish a run to the bathroom, however, that’s account a quick Standby, but annihilation over 10 account and I’d Hide instead.
7. Avant-garde ability optionsTweak avant-garde settings. Virtually all laptops bogus in the accomplished 24 months accept some avant-garde ability options. Mine, for example, allows me to go into 16-bit blush mode, force the CPU into a power-saving mode, attenuate my LAN port, and more. This ability assume obvious, but if you aren’t accomplishing it already, go acquisition these settings (probably in the ascendancy panel, or possibly through custom software provided by your manufacturer) and get advancing with them! If you don’t accept any added control, one acceptable added tip is to manually force your awning into lower blush modes, as they use beneath CPU all-embracing and can accomplish a huge aberration in the continued run. While you are at it, you ability wish to change your Alarms settings, as abounding laptops absence to shutting down with as abundant as 10% of your array still accessible (my Low Array is just an active at 5%, and my Critical is force hide at 1%)!
Avant-garde Vaio ability options
8. Choose Wisely. Good: Word, Excel, Outlook, Argument Editors. Bad: annihilation by Adobe (you anticipate Microsoft has bloatware, accept you noticed how continued even Acrobat takes to barrage these days???), all Google plugins, abounding ‘Widgets’, ‘Gadgets’, etc. All I can say is aces your battles wisely. 50 account of a video adventurous ate up over 2 hours of my array time, admitting autograph email or abstracts tend to use up beneath than what Windows predicts (about 105% of the appraisal on average). I’ve aswell begin WinDVD is appropriate on the money for array consumption, and Windows Media Player is a little power-hungry (by the way, if you are appliance your laptop to play music accomplish assertive you attenuate visualizations). On that note, don’t use your laptop to play music unless actually necessary, it’s a absolute ability killer.
9. Watch That Harder Drive. I just wrote, don’t play music, but the acumen is mostly about your drive. The added it spins, the added ability it takes. Accomplish abiding you’ve set your basal ability advantage to about-face off your drive about fast, but not necessarily too fast. Some drives use added ability accepting started than blockage active for abbreviate periods of time. I set my Vaio to about-face off the deejay afterwards 3 account of inactivity, you may wish more, you may wish less. At the end of the day, if you are accomplishing annihilation that prevents the harder drive from spinning down ever, you are clarification your array added than needed.
10. Ability alarmsLike a Boy Scout, Be Prepared. I accomplish a point of configuring my ‘flight mode’ above-mentioned to accepting on the plane. It may alone yield 5-10 account to get your arrangement bureaucracy properly, but that just eats into your array action if you delay to do it on the plane. Already done with all the settings, the endure affair I do afore unplugging my ability accumulation is comatose the PC.
I achievement some of these tips advice you out. Personally, I add about 30 account (or more) to the constancy of my accepted array (3:30 on boilerplate now), and about an hour on the continued one (6:30 or so). This gives me about 10 hours of accumulated action (4 abounding DVDs guaranteed), which apparel me absolutely well.
October 14, 2009
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