3 Things That Determine the Duration of a Laptop Battery

August 2009
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Monday, August 31st, 2009 @ 10:44 am | Misc

You have just started working on your laptop, you are probably traveling – so the laptop is not connected to any power source. You then realize that within a few minutes of switching your machine on, the laptop is shutting down – there is no power!

“Wasn’t this thing supposed to last at least two hours?” You ask yourself.

The general question that many laptop users ask themselves is: how long should I use my battery before it switches off?

So, what are some of the things that determine how long your battery will power your laptop without the need for recharge?

1. The age of the battery

Everything good usually degenerates: the laptop battery is not an exception. In the long run, the battery will lose its efficiency and effectiveness. Once a certain number of years pass, say two, the battery of the laptop usually starts to depreciate in terms of its efficiency. Batteries that would have powered the laptop for three hours cannot last even for five minutes. The very strength that puts them above desktop computers seems to get lost.

If your battery is having such problems, the only thing is to buy another one. There is no other solution other than this.

2. The level of activity

The level of activity affects the battery length in that if you are currently engaged in an activity that consumes a lot of energy such as doing a lot of graphics, using a bright screen, and playing music on you laptop, you can be sure that your laptop battery won’t last as long as it would if you were only dealing with updating your antivirus database. Other issues that reduce the battery’s efficiency include external devices such as USB devices must be done away with if you want to have a lengthy battery service.

3. Laptop Battery Health

Battery health refers to the general condition of the laptop battery regardless of the number of years it has been use. Battery health depends a lot on how keen you have been in taking care of the battery itself. Despite the fact that a battery might be old, it may still do better than its newer counterparts if at all it is regularly cleaned, especially at the terminals.

When a laptop battery is not properly taken care of and its terminals become rusty, the terminal increase their resistance to electric currents hence causing the laptop to consume power in a very inefficient manner. To take care of this, make sure that you clean any dirt so that it does not increase electrical resistance to electric current and reduce the laptop’s efficiency.

All in all, if you find that your battery is increasingly letting you down, it is probably time to get a totally new battery. This may be the only solution at your disposal. No matter how much you take care of your battery, there will come a time when it will be a must for you to do away with your battery and get a new one. It is also important to note that if your laptop happens to be obsolete, it may be best to get a new laptop altogether.