by Jonathan Heitz

There are many reasons why you may need to preserve your laptop’s battery.  Perhaps you will be on a trip where you will lack access to power; maybe you are going to a conference where you need to use your laptop for an extended time or, maybe your laptop’s battery drains faster than you would like. Whatever the case may be, taking advantage of these tips will significantly increase your laptop’s battery life if you are running Windows 10.

1. Take advantage of “Battery Saver”

Windows 10 includes a feature called “Battery Saver”, which adjusts various system settings and background tasks to greatly improve battery life until the next charge. To access this feature, click the battery icon as circled in the graphic below.

2. Adjust wireless communication settings.

Having things like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi enabled, when you don’t need to, takes an unnecessary toll on your battery. You can disable them from the taskbar as shown below.

3. Disable background processes.

Background processes can also have a large influence on battery life. Applications like instant messaging programs, antivirus, and cloud storage software typically run in the background. It is ideal to not have too many of these applications installed on your computer in order to maintain optimal performance and battery life. Windows Update is another battery-hungry process. You can adjust your preferred update window in settings as shown below.

4.     Disconnect any unneeded peripherals

USB devices like keyboards, mice, and flash drives require power. With no other place to draw power from, these devices will drain your battery when plugged in, even if not in use. USB is not the only culprit, however. Using any port on your laptop will drain battery, although other ports might not drain it as much as USB.

5.     Lower speaker volume

Speakers also take a toll on your battery. Keeping them at a low volume, or off, will drastically improve your battery life.

6.     Minimize multitasking

While it may be convenient to keep things like your email or music open while you’re working on something else, it is also a huge waste of battery. Windowed applications use more battery than background applications, especially if you have your email sending/receiving every minute, or your music player streaming music. Any application which you do not need to be running at a given time should not be running while trying to maximize battery life.

7.     Lower your brightness

As you may have heard more than anything else in this list, lowering your brightness is key to preserving battery life. Your laptop’s display draws a lot of power, and keeping it at full brightness will not help.

The number of these tips you decide to utilize is up to you. The more you take advantage of, the more battery you’ll save.

We’d love to hear from you. So, let us know by leaving a comment below if you find these helpful!

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