Month: February 2023

If you’ve read this far in the guide, you obviously haven’t managed to improve your PC’s battery life yet. You have no reason to worry because you will most likely be able to solve your problems by performing a procedure known as battery calibration. Are you wondering how to do it? I’ll explain it to you right away.

For starters, turn on your laptop and let it download completely. Then put it back on charge, wait for it to charge 100%, leave it on charge for a couple of hours and repeat the steps I just indicated again (possibly 3-4 more times). If all went well, you should notice a significant improvement in the battery life of your laptop.

Checking for the presence of viruses and malware on your PC is essential, and it is for at least two reasons: the first is undoubtedly the security of your personal data; the second, however, has to do with the autonomy of your laptop. If you don’t know it, malicious software that “live” inside a PC to “feed itself” consumes huge amounts of energy and that’s why battery life anomalies should sound like an alarm bell.

How can you intercept and possibly eliminate viruses that may be lurking on your PC? Simple: by installing a good antivirus (whether free or paid), keeping it constantly updated and performing regular scans with it.

If you want to maximize the autonomy of your laptop, you should disable the automatic launch of programs that you do not need to use when the system starts. Here’s how you can do that.

On Windows, call up the Task Manager tool by simultaneously pressing the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys on the keyboard and clicking on the Task Manager item on the screen that opens. Alternatively, you can open the Task Manager tool by right-clicking on an “empty” spot on the taskbar and selecting Task Manager or Start Task Manager from the menu that opens, or by typing “task manager” in the Windows search bar ( bottom left) and then clicking on the first search result.

In the Task Manager main window, click More details (if necessary), select the Startup tab, find the programs you don’t want to open automatically at system startup and disable them by right-clicking each one’s icon and then selecting the Disable item from the context menu or, if you prefer, by clicking on the Disable button located at the bottom right.

All laptops, both Windows and macOS, offer an energy saving mode, which allows you to lower consumption and increase the battery life of your computer. Let me tell you how to activate it.

On Windows, go to the Control Panel, click on the items System and Security> Energy Saving Options and choose one of the three predefined combinations: Balanced, Energy Saving or High Performance. If your computer is updated to Windows 10, you can adjust energy consumption by clicking on the battery icon in the notification area and sliding the cursor in the box that opens to choose the energy profile you prefer the most.

Even the software that is started on the PC has an important impact on energy consumption. For this reason, I suggest that you use the software that is already installed on your PC as much as possible, because they are tailor-made for the operating system installed on it. For example, to browse the Internet from your Windows 10 PC, use the Microsoft Edge browser, while on macOS browse with Safari, the browser developed by Apple.

Staying on the subject of the energy consumption of the programs, check which ones consume the most energy and, if you don’t need them, close them. Are you wondering how to do it? On Windows, call up the Task Management tool (I have already explained how to call it up in the chapter dedicated to automatic deactivation of programs), click on More details (if necessary), identify the processes that require more energy resources and close them.

Another way to make your laptop battery last longer is to turn off unnecessary connections. If you don’t need Wi-Fi or Bluetooth at any given moment, why leave them on and waste energy unnecessarily?

To disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on Windows 10, for example, you can click on the balloon icon located in the notification area (bottom right) and press the Airplane mode button to disable all connections in one one shot. If you want, you can also disable just one of the two connections by pressing the Network or Bluetooth button.

Reducing the graphic effects of Windows and macOS is another important trick that you should think about if you want to increase battery life and, why not, also to optimize the performance of your PC (especially if it is an obsolete model).

Have no idea how to reduce the graphic effects? On Windows, open the Control Panel, click on the System and Security item located at the top left and, in the window that opens, click on the System item (which would be the third in the list) and then on the Advanced system settings item it’s in the sidebar on the left.

In the System Properties window, click on the Advanced tab, press the Settings button, go to Performance Options, click on the Visual Effects tab, uncheck the listed effects (e.g. Animations on the taskbar, Dissolve menu items after click, Use drop shadow for desktop icon labels, etc.) and save the changes by clicking on the Apply and OK buttons.

Is your laptop keyboard backlit? If you answered in the affirmative, then you have found another factor contributing more or less significantly to poor battery life. For heaven’s sake, this is certainly a very useful feature (especially when you find yourself writing on the keyboard in poorly lit environments) and valuable, but the fact remains that turning off the keyboard backlight (or at least lowering it) is an operation necessary to increase the autonomy of your laptop a little.

On many models of Windows laptops it is possible to deactivate the keyboard backlight using a combination of keys (usually you have to press the Fn key together with the F2 or F3 keys). These keys are easily recognizable because they usually have a dash with light rays on them.

On MacBooks, MacBook Airs, and MacBook Pros, however, you can turn off the keyboard backlight by holding down the F5 key, and you can turn it back on by pressing the F6 key.

Reducing the graphic effects of Windows and macOS is another important trick that you should think about if you want to increase battery life and, why not, also to optimize the performance of your PC (especially if it is an obsolete model).

Have no idea how to reduce the graphic effects? On Windows, open the Control Panel, click on the System and Security item located at the top left and, in the window that opens, click on the System item (which would be the third in the list) and then on the Advanced system settings item it’s in the sidebar on the left.

In the System Properties window, click on the Advanced tab, press the Settings button, go to Performance Options, click on the Visual Effects tab, uncheck the listed effects (e.g. Animations on the taskbar, Dissolve menu items after click, Use drop shadow for desktop icon labels, etc.) and save the changes by clicking on the Apply and OK buttons.

The light emitted by the laptop display consumes a considerable amount of energy and it is for this reason that you need to use the right level of screen brightness. And then, let’s face it: if you use the laptop mainly at home, in the office or in any case in environments not exposed to particularly intense light sources, it is unlikely that you need to have the brightness of the screen always at maximum.

Not sure how to turn down the brightness of your display? I guarantee you that it is a very simple operation: if you use a Windows laptop, for example, you can act directly on the keyboard by pressing the Fn key on it and then pressing one of the two keys in which the sun symbol is depicted. Unfortunately I cannot give you precise indications in this regard because the position of the keys in question varies from laptop to laptop; some manufacturers, for example, allow you to adjust the brightness by pressing the F2 and F3 keys, while still other manufacturers have assigned this function to the F11 and F12 keys.

If you want, you can also adjust the brightness level from the Windows Control Panel. If your computer is updated to Windows 10, type “change brightness level” in the search field located at the bottom left, click on the first result that is offered to you and, in the window that opens, use the cursor under the heading Change brightness to adjust the level of brightness you prefer and which is more suitable for your surroundings.