Top Things affecting laptop battery life
Before you start complaining about disgraceful Dell latitude d620 battery life in your laptop, think about things which could eat the most of laptop battery power. By ‘things’ I mean computer’s built-in devices and features. Let’s see:
Screen backlight
Keep it dimmed as much as possible, and turn it down (i.e. close a lid) while you’re away. It really eats a lot of power.
Wireless devices
WiFi adapters, Bluetooth dongles, built-in mobile/cellular cards. Switch all of those off, if you don’t need it. You will feel the difference. Guaranteed.
CPU, hard drive
You cannot switch CPU or HDD totally off, but you can set CPU to lock frequency at minimum level while running on battery power. I was really surprised to see how high power consumption jumps up while CPU is running at full speed. HDD could also go to sleep while not needed. Did I mention Laptop Mode tools?
Dedicated video adapter
Having fancy nVidia or ATI dedicated video adapters, instead of cheap onboard ones, might be cool (especially with desktop-effects to show off), but bear in mind these are extra devices with GPUs, which also like to eat a lot of protons and electrons…
Externals
All external USB/Firewire/PC Card/etc. devices are also taking significant part in raising demand for power. If you like to keep external memory card reader or hard disk connected via USB 24/7, maybe it’s good time to stop liking that idea?
Internals
Enter BIOS and go through each screen, switching off all internal devices which you don’t need. These might be something like internal modem, IR port, serial/parallel ports, etc. You can be seriously surprised how all these things are adding up in total Dell Latitude d630 Battery power consumption. I was, at least.
Software
Compiling kernel while computer’s running on battery, would not help save the most of it. Same with watching films, playing games, etc. Not touching computer at all would be probably the best idea. 😉
How to check Dell latitude d620 battery health
To check the battery health, press and hold the status button on the battery charge gauge for at least 3 seconds. If no lights appear, the Dell Latitude d820 Battery is in good condition, and more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity remains. Each light represents incremental degradation. If five lights appear, less than 60 percent of the charge capacity remains, and you should consider replacing the laptop battery.
