How to Prolong Battery Life

Battery Life

Sometimes it can seem like our world revolves around trying to find an outlet. Yes, we may have just charged our laptop or phone, but it always seems to be running on empty. This can cause a lot of distress, especially if you need your phone to figure out a meeting time for your group, or you are almost done with your project but the battery is gonna die before you can submit it. Whatever the case may be, there are some basic actions you can take to prolong your battery life so that when you need it it's there.

1) Turn down the brightness: The higher your brightness is the more power it takes to light the LED’s, so turning your brightness down is one easy way to conserve some battery life. You can turn the brightness on your laptop down by pressing the sun symbol on your keyboard; it’s usually on one of the F6 or F7 keys on the top row. On a phone, the brightness is usually located in the settings app under display. While you’re in the brightness settings, it’s also a good idea to turn off auto brightness because the phone has to work harder when it has to check to see what kind of lighting you’re in.

2) Shut off any programs and features you’re not using: The more programs you have running and the more multitasking you do the more energy you’re going to use. So, if you’re not using Skype, Spotify, Facebook, etc… shut them down. On a computer, one way you can do that is by right-clicking the icon on your taskbar and clicking close program or window. As for phones, each one is different. For iphones you double click the home button and swipe the applications up, for androids each phone has its own short cut but, under most phone’s application settings you can go to the application manager and shut them down that way. Plus, if you’re not using the internet (WiFi does a great job at eating up your battery life) or any Bluetooth devices it’s a good idea to turn those off. Also, on a laptop it’s a good idea to remove any items you may have plugged into your USB ports because they drain on your battery too.

3) Avoid doing high energy activities when possible: Watching videos (especially DVD’s) greatly diminishes you battery life as does gaming, listening to music/music videos, and intense web surfing.

4) Shut down or put your computer to sleep when you’re not using it for a while: If you don’t fully shut your computer down you may still have background programs running on your computer, which as we have already discussed is not good for battery life. If you don’t want to completely turn your computer off and on every time you’re not using it, you can use sleep mode to help save battery. You can use sleep mode by clicking (not pressing and holding) the power button on your computer or phone and it should help your computer hold a charge longer without turning the device off and on.

5) Battery saving mode: Most portable devices have a battery saving mode where the device will turn off un-needed apps and reduce screen brightness automatically in an attempt to save battery. You can enter this mode on computers by clicking on the battery icon on your task bar and selecting “Power Saver” or some such option. On phones, again each is unique, usually you can get to it by swiping your finger down from the top of the screen. This pulls down a menu and you can select battery saving mode.

6) Stay cool and don’t over heat: Heat wears really heavily on your battery, in fact it’s recommended to not let your computer get above 104°F - 112°F. That may seem really high but it’s surprising how easily your devices can reach that temperature, especially if left out in the sun or asked to do a strenuous task for a long period of time. To help combat this, don’t stick your phone on the dashboard or leave your laptop in your car on a sunny day. Also, if you feel like your device is getting too hot, put a fan on it or let it rest for a little bit until it cools down. Another quick tip with laptops is, try to keep the fan vents clean and open; don’t put your computer on a mound of pillows and blankets that will restrict the airflow to the fans.

7) Be careful with your charging habits: When charging your electronics it’s best not to overcharge them or let them discharge too far, especially when dealing with phones. Don’t leave your phone charging all night (some chargers cut off when the phone reaches a full charge but it’s best to just unplug it), in fact, it’s best to only charge it 70-80% and then unplug it. Also, don’t let your phone completely run out of battery on a regular basis because that isn’t good for it either. However, a full discharge every month or so is good to help recalibrate the battery but other than that it’s best to recharge it once it reaches around 40%.

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If you have a laptop and the previous tips just are not cutting it for you and you’re wanting to find more involved ways to increase your battery life, here’s a brief list of other ways to go about doing that:

Add more RAM so there’s less strain on the hard-drive. For typical users 2GB will do the trick, however, you may want more if you’re really into gaming or other high energy tasks.


Turn off any unused ports. Above and beyond unplugging USB devices you can also turn off any unused graphics cards and optical drivers. Be careful doing this though, you don’t want to turn off something that is necessary to the function of the computer.


Clean the battery contacts with rubbing alcohol every 2 months or so. Using a rag with some rubbing alcohol on the contacts to wipe away buildup on can help keep the energy transfer as efficient as possible.


Defragment your hard drive. After a period of time your hard drive can get disorganized by having files stored in random places. You can run a defragmenter on your computer to clean that up and make your computer more efficient. Some computers have it set up to automatically defragment the computer once a week, to check if that is the case you can type “defragment” into the computer’s search bar and open the program listed there. Note: Mac’s do not have this function so if you are an Apple user this will not show up for you.


Run virus and malware scans. Virus and malware can be a drain on your computers speed, performance, and battery life. You can get rid of them by running your anti-virus scanner or you can use products like Malwarebytes, SpyBot, and CCleaner to clean up those unwanted and/or harmful items on your computer. You can also bring your computer up to our help desk and we can clean those off for you.

The dreaded “you’re battery is running low” warnings may still pop-up, and you may still have to hunt for those outlets, because batteries do unavoidably die after a time. However, hopefully with these tips you’ll be able to make those a rare occurrence instead of a daily ordeal. May your battery live a long happy life.