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Every laptop user at one time or another has run out of battery power, and it seems that you always run out of battery power at the worst possible moment. Getting more out of your battery starts with knowing which components drain the battery the most, so that you can minimize their impact on your overall battery life. Here is a list of the 5 biggest battery drainers for laptops.

The LCD Display

The LCD display is by far the biggest battery drainer in a laptop. In some models it can account for more than 50% of the power used. To combat this, sleep the display as often as possible. Turn down the screen brightness whenever possible as well.

The Chipset

The chipset includes the motherboard and graphics processor. Models that have a dedicated graphics processor will require more battery power. Sleeping the display or putting the machine in standby will help to minimize the need for chipset power.

External Devices

External devices such as USB hard drive, MP3 players, thumb drives, and other devices can use up a lot of battery power, especially those are powered or charged from the USB port. Unplug any unnecessary devices and accessories to save battery power.

The Processor

The processor generally uses around 10% of the battery power in use, though it requires more during heavy processing. Close unnecessary programs and background processes to reduce the load on the processor to prolong battery life.

The Hard Drive

The hard drive tends to use about 5% of the battery power in use, but uses more when the system is reading to and writing from the drive heavily. As with the processor, closing unnecessary programs and background processes will help, as well as avoiding programs that frequently write to the drive.

These guidelines give you an idea of the laptop components that use up the majority of your battery life. Following these guidelines and utilizing the laptop’s power management features should help you prolong the battery life of your machine.

The laptop battery is an integral part of a notebook computer, as it provides the portable power needed to use your laptop on the go. Unfortunately, laptop batteries can experience a number of issues, and even in the best case, a laptop battery only has a limited life before it will need to be replaced. Let’s take a look at the 5 most common laptop battery problems.

1. Age or loss of capacity

Laptop batteries have a capacity, usually measured in milliampere-hours or mAh. Over time, the batteries capacity will shrink, as it loses the ability to fully charge all of its cells. Laptop Batteries that have lost a significant amount of capacity will need to be replaced.

2. Heat or swelling of the battery

If a notebook battery becomes too hot, it can begin to swell and expand. This can be caused by poor ventilation or an overheating computer. It is important to replace a swollen laptop battery, as it can be very dangerous, and can cause damage to the laptop or injury to the user.

3. Discharge

If a notebook battery sits unused for a long period of time, it can be difficult to recharge it. This affects older batteries more than modern batteries. If the laptop battery cannot be recharged, it will need to be replaced.

4. Memory Effect

Older laptop batteries sometimes experienced what is known as “memory effect”. Notebook Batteries that were not discharged often would sometimes become unable to use some of the cells, reducing capacity significantly. If you have an older battery, especially a Ni-Cad laptop battery, be sure to discharge it completely at least once a month, to avoid the memory effect.

5. Manufacturing defects

Many manufacturers have had to recall laptop batteries in recent years due to manufacturing defects that caused them to malfunction. Sony, Toshiba, Dell, and Apple were all affected. If you believe your notebook battery has malfunctioned, or is prematurely losing capacity, contact the manufacturer to see if a recall has been issued for your model.

Over the past several years, lithium-ion batteries have been the preferred technology, not just for laptop batteries, but also for a number of electronic devices such as cell phones and MP3 players. Some of the main reasons for their popularity are that they are inexpensive to manufacture and that they don’t exhibit many of the issues that plague older technologies, such as the “memory effect” which can cause a dramatic decrease in capacity. Lithium-ion batteries can still have problems, however. Here, we will explore a few of the main issues that can affect lithium-ion batteries.

Decreased Capacity

The main problem with lithium-ion batteries is that they tend to lose some of their capacity over time. This is caused by deposits that form inside the electrolyte of the battery, which eventually inhibits the transport of ions. Eventually the battery loses a large amount of its capacity and needs to be repaired or replaced.

Overheating

Lithium-ion batteries tend to heat up when being charged or discharged. Generally, this is not enough heat to cause any concern, but if the battery malfunctions, it may cause a large amount of heat. In extreme cases, batteries may even bulge or catch fire, though these cases are very rare. Li-ion batteries have many safety features to protect against these kinds of malfunctions.

Not Charging When Plugged In

In some cases, a laptop battery will not register as charging even when the laptop is plugged in. Check to make sure the battery is correctly inserted and that the AC adapter is connected securely to the laptop and the wall outlet. In most cases, this problem is caused by a bad AC adapter or a defective DC jack on the laptop instead of the battery itself.

Despite the few issues mentioned above, lithium-ion batteries tend to be very robust and reliable. Lithium-ion will continue to be the battery of choice for quite a few more years, even as it is slowly replaced by newer technologies.

All laptop parts have the potential to fail at one point or another. The most likely components to fail are often those with a number of moving parts, as wear and tear will eventually take their toll. A laptop AC adapter failure, however, is common. Since the adapter has no moving parts, it is much less likely to encounter mechanical problems, but failures can still occur.

When troubleshooting a laptop AC adapter, there are a few steps that can help rule out other causes and narrow down the issue that is causing the problem.

1. Ensure you have the correct AC adapter

Ensure that you have the correct adapter for your laptop. Especially in a house or office environment with multiple laptops, it can be easy to grab the wrong one by mistake. Most laptop AC adapters are incompatible with other laptop models. In many cases, the tip will not fit into an incompatible laptop, but this is not always true.

2. Check for damage

If your AC adapter seems to be failing, check for signs of visible damage. Inspect the tip which inserts into the laptop, as well as the entire cord, looking for extreme kinks or frayed wires. Also check the transformer or “brick” for any signs of wear, such as cracks or bulging. If any of these signs are present, you should replace the AC adapter immediately to avoid any risk of electrical shock or damage to the laptop.

3. Try another adapter

If you have a second adapter or can borrow a compatible adapter from someone with the same model of laptop, you can rule out the possibility that the problem is caused by another component. Often, problems with the other internal system components can cause charging issues and other symptoms that aren’t caused by the AC adapter itself.

If you have tried these steps and believe your laptop AC adapter needs to be replaced, make sure you find a compatible replacement for your model. Many online retailers offer a parts locator tool for finding replacement parts specific to your laptop model. Many reputable sellers also offer customer support by phone to help you find a suitable replacement.

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If your HP laptop is not charging the battery while your AC adapter is plugged into the laptop, you probably need a replacement Laptop AC Adapter. It is important to ensure you have the correct AC adapter for your specific HP laptop, as using an incorrect adapter could potentially cause damage. Here are a few methods for finding the proper HP laptop AC adapter.

The simplest method is to use an online parts locator tool. Many online retailers offer such a tool. Simply enter your HP laptop’s model number into the search and the tool will provide you with the proper replacement parts that are compatible with your specific model. The benefit of this method is that you are often given a choice of both OEM and third-party Laptop AC adapters for your HP notebook. Third-party adapters are often much less expensive than their OEM counterparts, and as long as they are purchased from a reliable source, should perform every bit as well as the OEM version.

Another method of finding the correct AC adapter for your HP laptop is to use the support software provided. Click Start, the Help & Support. Here you will find the product name, model number, and serial number. This will help you locate the correct part for your HP laptop. The product’s serial number is usually located on the bottom of the machine as well. You can call HP support directly to order a replacement AC adapter, though this will usually be the most expensive route. Another option is to call or email an online retailer with your model number and serial number, and they can often help you locate the correct part.

Finding replacement parts for an HP laptop is not as difficult as it once was, with the benefit of online parts locator tools. It is now a simple process to find parts even for older models. Take advantage of the many tools available for finding an AC adapter for your HP laptop.

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If your laptop is no longer receiving a charge, or is only intermittently receiving a charge, there are a few different components that could be the cause. The AC adapter is a likely culprit, but it can be difficult to determine if a fault DC jack or another component could be causing the problem instead. By testing your AC adapter with a multi-meter or volt meter, you can determine if it is outputting power and eliminate the possibility of a failed AC adapter. Here is how to test the AC adapter and determine if it needs repaired.

1. Turn off the laptop if necessary and unplug the AC adapter from the laptop. Leave the adapter plugged into the wall outlet.
2. Read the rating on the side of the AC adapter to find out its intended voltage. For example, the “Output” listing may say something like “9V DC”. This means the adapter output 9 volts of DC power.
3. Set the multi-meter to DC and set the range to something slightly higher than the expected output voltage. For example, if the adapter is rated for 9 volts, set the range to 20 volts.
4. Connect the leads to the ports in the multi-meter if they are not already connected.
5. Stick the red lead inside the tip of the AC adapter and press the black lead against the metal around the outside of the tip. Keep both in place at the same time. The meter should read something near the rated voltage on the AC adapter. Some adapters output a much higher voltage than their rating, but it should be within a range of around 30% up or down.

If you get a rating that is somewhat higher or lower, the adapter is still likely functioning correctly. If you get no rating at all, or the voltage seems to be intermittent, your AC adapter may be damaged and should probably be replaced.

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A laptop cannot function without adequate power, and laptop power issues can sometimes be difficult to diagnose and to fix. Here are a few of the most common power issues and a few ways to troubleshoot them.

Laptop Won’t Power Up

When a laptop won’t power up, the problem usually lies in the AC adapter or battery. Try running the laptop from just the battery, then try running it with the AC adapter with the battery removed. If possible, try borrowing a working battery or AC adapter from a friend or at a repair shop. Replace the adapter or battery as necessary.

Battery Doesn’t Charge

The operating system usually gives an indication as to whether the battery is charging. When the battery does not charge correctly, even when plugged in, the problem is usually a faulty AC adapter or a bad DC jack. If replacing the AC adapter does not solve the problem, the DC jack (where the AC adapter plugs into the laptop) may need to be repaired. Take the laptop to a professional repair technician.

Laptop Turns Itself Off

If your laptop is turning itself off at random moments, there could be a few causes. Over-voltage or under-voltage from the AC adapter can sometimes cause the computer to turn off, but the most common cause is overheating. When the laptop becomes overheated, it will often power down to save components from being damaged. Use a can of compressed air to blow as much dust and debris from the laptop’s vents as possible, and check that the cooling fan is working correctly.

These are the most common power issues you will encounter with any laptop. Hopefully, the troubleshooting tips above will help you to diagnose and fix the problems you encounter and get your laptop back up and running properly. If you have tried the troubleshooting tips above and are still having problems, it is a good idea to take your laptop to a qualified repair technician.

 

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One of the most common complaints for all mobile users is the battery never seems to last as long as promised. Just when you need to send that critical email or make that important call, you get an obnoxious low battery warning. If you don’t want to succumb to walking around with an adapter and looking for an outlet to recharge, try some of these tips to prolong your phone’s battery life and combat the biggest causes of cell phone battery life drain.

01 Turn Off Features You Don’t Use, Especially: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS

Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS are some of the biggest battery killers on cell phones, because they are constantly looking for possible connections, networks, or information. Turn off these features (look in your phone’s settings) except when you need them to save power. Some phones–for example, Android smartphones, have widgets that offer toggles to quickly turn these features on or off so you can switch on Bluetooth when you’re in the car for hands-free driving or GPS navigation and then turn it off to save your phone’s battery life.

02 Turn on Wi-Fi When You Can Connect to a Wi-Fi Network

Having Wi-Fi on drains your battery–if you’re not using it. But if you’re on a wireless network, it’s much more power-efficient to use Wi-Fi than to use cellular data, so switch to Wi-Fi instead of 3G or 4G when you can, to save your phone’s battery life. (E.g., when you’re at your house, use Wi-Fi but when you aren’t near any Wi-Fi networks, turn Wi-Fi off to keep your phone running longer.)

03 Adjust Your Display Screen Brightness and Screen Timeout

As with laptops and TVs, the screen on your cell phone drains a lot of its battery life. Your phone probably auto-adjusts its brightness level, but if your battery starts dipping to levels that make you anxious, you can adjust the screen brightness even lower to conserve more battery life. If you like, you can go to your phone’s display settings and set the brightness to as low as you are comfortable with. The lower the better for your phone’s battery.

Another setting to look at is the screen timeout. That’s the setting for when your phone’s screen automatically goes to sleep (1 minute, for example or 15 seconds after not getting any input from you). The lower the timeframe, the better the battery life. Adjust to your level of patience.

04 Turn Off Push Notifications and Data-Fetching

One of the conveniences of modern technology is having everything delivered to us instantly, as they happen. Emails, news, the weather, celebrity tweets–we are constantly being updated. Besides being bad for our sanity, the constant data checking keeps our phones from lasting very long. Adjust your data-fetching intervals and push notifications in your phone’s settings and in individual apps themselves (news apps, for example, and social apps are notorious for constantly checking in the background for new information. Set those to checking manually or hourly if you must). If you don’t need to know the second every email comes in, changing your email push notifications to manual can make a huge difference in your phone’s battery life.

05 Don’t Waste Battery Life Searching for a Signal

Your poor phone is dying and it’s trying to find a signal. If you’re in an area with a weak 4G signal, turn the 4G off and go with 3G to extend the battery life. If there’s no cellular coverage at all, turn cellular data off altogether by going into Airplane mode (look in your phone’s settings). Airplane mode will turn the cellular and data radio off but leave Wi-Fi access on, for most devices.

06 Buy Apps Instead of the Free, Ad-Supported Android Versions

If battery life is really important to you and you’re an Android smartphone owner, shelling out a couple of bucks for apps you use may be worth it, since research suggests free, ad-supported apps drain battery life. In one case, 75% of an app’s energy consumption was used just to power the ads! (Yes, even in the case of beloved Angry Birds, only 20% of the app’s energy use may go to actual gameplay.)

07 Keep Your Phone Cool

Heat is the enemy of all batteries, whether your phone’s battery or your laptop’s. You might be able to eke out a bit more life out of your phone if you take it out of a hot case or your pocket, don’t leave it overheating in a hot car, and can manage to find other ways to keep it cool.

Of course, as a last resort, turning your phone off when not in use can also cool it down and conserve the battery.

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Boost battery life: 1. Dim the screen brightness or use auto brightness

You love your smartphone’s large, colourful display, but it’s the battery’s mortal enemy. More than any other component of your phone, the display consumes battery life at a devastating pace. Most phones include an auto-brightness feature that automatically adjusts the screen’s brightness to suit ambient lighting levels.

Boost battery life: 2. Keep the screen timeout short

Under your phone’s display settings menu, you should find an option labeled ‘Screen Timeout’ or something similar. (On an iPhone, look for Auto-Lock in the General settings menu.) This setting controls how long your phone’s screen stays lit after receiving input, such as a tap.

Every second counts here, so set your timeout to the shortest available time. On most Android phones, the minimum is 15 seconds. If your screen timeout is currently set to 2 minutes, consider reducing that figure to 30 seconds or less. On an iPhone, the minimum you can set is 1 minute.

Boost battery life: 3. Turn off Bluetooth

No matter now much you love using Bluetooth with your hands-free headset, your wireless speaker or activity tracker, the extra radio is constantly listening for signals from the outside world. When you aren’t in your car, or when you aren’t playing music wirelessly, turn off the Bluetooth radio. This way, you can add an hour or more to your phone’s battery life.

Boost battery life: 4. Turn off Wi-Fi

As with Bluetooth, your phone’s Wi-Fi radio is a serious battery drainer. While you will at times need to use your home or office Wi-Fi connection rather than 3G or 4G for internet access and other data services, there’s little point in leaving the Wi-Fi radio on when you’re out and about. Toggle it off when you go out the door, and turn it back on only when you plan to use data services within range of your Wi-Fi network. Android users can add the Wi-Fi toggle widget to their home screen to make this a one-tap process, or swipe down from the top of the screen (twice if you have Lollipop.)

In iOS it’s easier than ever to toggle Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on and off. Simply swipe up from the bottom of the screen to display the Control Centre.

The exception to this rule is for location services, since Wi-Fi can help your phone to obtain a GPS fix using less power (see myths section below).

Boost battery life: 5. Go easy on the location services, and GPS

Another big battery sucker is apps using GPS, Wi-Fi and mobile data for monitoring your location. As a user, you can revoke apps’ access to location services, or set levels (in Android) to determine how much power they use. In Settings > Location, you can choose High accuracy when you need it, or Battery saving when you don’t.

Be smart about what you allow each app to access. Allowing your apps to integrate with your location, camera, or SD card can be convenient but is most often not necessary. Granting too many permissions to an app that never uses them will drain your battery for no benefit.

Boost battery life: 6. Don’t leave apps running in the background

Multitasking – the ability to run more than one app at a time – is a powerful smartphone feature. It can also burn a lot of energy, because every app you run uses a share of your phone’s processor cycles (but this isn’t true of all apps – see the myths section below).

Boost battery life: 7. Don’t use vibrate

Prefer to have your phone alert you to incoming calls by vibrating rather than playing a ringtone? We understand the inclination; unfortunately, vibrating uses much more power than playing a ringtone does. After all, a ringtone only has to make a tiny membrane in your phone’s speaker vibrate enough to produce sound.

In contrast, the vibration motor rotates a small weight to make your whole phone shake. That process takes a lot more power. If you don’t want to be disturbed audibly, consider turning off all notifications and leave the phone in view so you can see when a new call is coming in. This approach is as courteous to your battery as it is to your friends and colleagues.

Boost battery life: 8. Turn off non-essential notifications

It seems as though almost every app now polls the internet in search of updates, news, messages, and other information. When it finds something, the app may chime, light up your screen and display a message, make your LED blink, or do all of the above. All of these things consume energy.

You probably don’t want to turn off notifications about new text messages or missed calls, but turning off superfluous notifications will help your battery last a little longer, and it will eliminate pointless distractions throughout your day.

Boost battery life: 9. Push email

Having your phone constantly check if there’s new email is a waste of power. Instead of allowing email to be pushed to your phone at any time, why not change the setting to fetch mail every so often – maybe 15 or 30 minutes if you don’t need to respond immediately to anyone?

Boost battery life: 10. Power-saving modes

Depending on your phone, you may find the manufacturer has provided power-saving features that go beyond anything available in Android by default. (Apple’s iOS doesn’t have a battery saving mode.)