Why Does My Laptop Battery Not Last as Long as It Used To
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.
There are physical devices on your laptop that requires using electricity and will cause your battery to not last very long. The hard drive, floppy drive and CD-ROM are physical devices that can cause your battery to be draining your electricity. Some processes that you are using on your laptop may be causing your physical memory to become consumed in your laptop system. This will cause the system to switch over to the virtual memory in order to finish the current project that you are in the process of completing. The virtual memory is produced in order to help increase the system memory resources by formulating a memory swap file on the hard drive and convey the information between the hard drive and the physical memory.
The hard drive is greedy when it comes to the electricity, so in turn the virtual memory will also drain the electricity because of the use of the hard drive. The audio and the display devices can also use a lot of electricity that will help drain your battery charge. You could try turning down the display screen where it is not as bright and this will help save electricity. Video devices that require graphic programs also consume electricity. Video software can contribute highly to on your electrical requirements because of its activity of virtual memory, computation and calculations.
There is also battery memory that could be why your laptop battery isn't holding out. Battery memory is an event when the battery conditions itself to run on less time that what it should run on to be efficient. One scenario is if you use your laptop on battery for an hour and half and then decide to plug it up to charge, the battery will become accustomed to only working on an hour and half and then the battery will become less charged and useless.
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.