Sunday, August 2, 2009

Laptop Battery Life Issues and How To Solve Them

By Nancy Walker

Perhaps your laptop battery is not lasting quite as long as it used to and you're not quite sure what the problem is with your battery. There could be several causes as to why your battery isn't lasting as long as it used to and holding a charge. Usage habit could be one of the reasons why your battery isn't hold charge very long.

Physical devices on your laptop that you use, which requires using electricity, will also cause your battery run time to not last very long. The physical devices that are some of the problems with your battery's charge to be depleted are the hard drive, CD-ROM and the floppy drive. There are probably some processes that you are using on your laptop that cause your physical memory to become exhausted in your system. The system will change to the virtual memory to finish the process you are in the middle of completing. The virtual memory is created to increase the system memory resources by devising a memory swap file on the hard drive and transferring the needed data between the hard drive and the physical memory.

The hard drive consumes a lot of electricity, so the virtual memory will end up depleting the electricity because it has to use the hard drive in its process of creating the virtual memory. Audio and display devices are also a reason why your battery charge may use excessive electricity. When you turn down the display screen so it will not be as bright, this will help cut down on the amount of electricity you use. There are video devices that use graphic programs that will contribute in the consumption of electricity. Video software can also drain your battery because of its use of virtual memory, calculations and computation.

Another factor to consider in why your laptop battery is not lasting is battery memory. Battery memory is where the battery becomes conformed to run for less time than it is actually created to run. For example, if you use your computer on battery for two hours and then plug it back up to recharge, the battery will become basically "trained" to be useable only two hours before it runs out of energy.

In order to repair battery memory problems, you must totally drain the battery and then recharge it. Go to your Windows Control Panel and select power to totally drain your battery. Turn off Power Management. Then go into your BIOS and check and see if there is a power management setting there, if so, you must turn it off also. After you finish these steps, use your Escape key to return back to the top level menu, choose Save Settings and Exit. After you have finished turning off the power management in the BIOS and your operating system, unplug the computer, turn the computer on and let it go until it is totally drained of electricity.

Charge the battery for twelve hours and after charging, use the computer again and make sure that the power is completely dead. Also, charge the battery again for another twelve hours. You should repeat the process four times and this should return the laptop back to the original power management settings. The battery should be used once every two weeks and you should also keep the battery in the system so that the AC adapter will actually keep the battery charged all the time. The battery should be totally discharged and stored at room temperature if you are not going to use the battery for more than two weeks. - 22787

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