Battery is critical to making your laptop mobile, performing, and – in many cases – affordable. However, over time natural wear and tear can reduce its efficiency. But there are several Windows settings that, if changed, will slow down battery degradation and prolong battery life.
1. Limit Battery Charge to 80%
Repeatedly charging your battery to its maximum until it cannot hold a charge any longer can do long term damage. A reduction of the charge to 80% reduces stress on the battery, which in turn should extend its useful life.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Access Your Laptop’s BIOS:
- Enter into restart mode; press a key during startup (typically F2, F10, or delete).
- Locate Battery Settings:
- Find the place (BIOS menu) of the battery or power.
- Activate Charge Limit:
- Turn on the feature that capping battery charging at 80%.
If your laptop doesn’t support this law of physics, you can use third party tools for battery management.
Enable Battery Saver Mode in Windows.
Windows actually comes with predefined features for power utilisation specifically when the battery is low. Battery Saver Mode minimises background processes and automatically adjusts the battery performance settings.
To activate Battery Saver:
- You will find it in Settings > System > Power & Battery.
- Turn on the toggle switch for the Battery Saver or programme it to activate when your battery reaches a certain percentage.
This simple adjustment could easily save you quite a bit of energy.
Adjust Display and Performance Settings.
The biggest power consumer on your system will be your screen. It makes a big difference to reduce its brightness or turn on adaptive brightness.
Here’s what you can do:
- Change display brightness setting from Taskbar or System settings.
If your laptop supports it, enable adaptive brightness. - Decrease the screen timeout and save energy while the laptop is idle.
Its also helpful to switch your machine to a balanced or power saving performance plan in Windows.
A Regular Maintenance will Keep Your Battery Healthy
Beyond software tweaks, good habits can prolong your battery life:
- One shouldn’t allow the battery to discharge completely.
- Don’t let your laptop get too hot. Keep it in a cool, dry place.
- If your battery gets billed up during a software update, it’s because such updates often have battery optimization features.
If you follow these steps you will be able to increase the life of the battery on your laptop and keep the performance going longer without needing to have it changed out so often.