Speaking of DVD drives, if you have an optical drive on your machine, make sure that there are no CDs or DVDs in it. The constant spinning of that drive will quickly drain your battery, leaving you high and dry.
Battery life is by no means a fixed number. Your battery may say it lasts for 6 hours, but depending on how you use your machine that number can be cut by more than half. So what are the most notorious battery drainers on your machine? The biggest drain on your laptop’s battery life is external devices. That USB mouse, that Flash drive, your nice big external hard drive or DVD drive, they all pull their power from your battery right through the USB port. If you know you have limited battery life and need to get something done, remove everything you can, and save them for when you get near an outlet.
For those of you with apple laptop batteries, you may also want to keep an eye on your battery’s onboard charge indicator to know when your battery is low. This is especially important if you have a spare battery in your bag, as you can check the remaining charge on the battery before a long trip. For those of you who use HP, Sony, Dell, Toshiba, or Asus laptop batteries, or any other brand, you may want to visit an online laptop spare parts retailer and look for batteries with similar on board charge indicators.
In some cases the OEM batteries did not include this feature, but some 3rd party compatible batteries include this feature.
Lastly, and perhaps somewhat obvious, is turn off the sound. If you’re on Dell laptop battery power and you need the most out of your machine, go ahead and mute your machine. It might be relaxing to work with a little background music, but turning those speakers off will help you to squeeze all the life you can out of a dwindling laptop Dell laptop battery.
One setting users often don’t think to change can have a huge effect on your Dell laptop battery’s life. By simply turning down the brightness on your laptop LCD panel, you can cut down a large portion of the drain on your machine. Just as it is with your home desktop, the chief flow of power in your machine goes to powering your monitor. The less it needs to project, the more Dell laptop battery you will have to keep your system running that much longer.
Another item people often don’t think to disable is the Wireless network card. If you aren’t actively using your internet connection, it will still search for and maintain a signal connection in the background, constantly draining your Dell laptop battery power to do so. Disabling your network card will expand your Dell laptop battery’s longevity by a very considerable amount.