Basic tips that apply to all notebook computers running Microsoft’s latest operating system.

NOTE: While we have tested these tips, Techlogg.com takes no responsibility for any loss or damage they may cause to your notebook computer. Use at your own risk.

If there’s one common complaint I hear all the time from readers about notebook computers, its poor battery life.

While newer technology tries to fix the problem, notebook vendors are caught between a rock and a hard place with consumers looking for more and more features. Those features consume more power, placing more strain on an already overtaxed battery.

Everyone is looking for the silver bullet, the final solution that gives the Holy Grail of maximum power and maximum performance.

Well, guess what? You won’t find it.

The two just don’t mix. You can’t have a notebook computer with all of the trimmings cranked up and expect the notebook to deliver you lots of long running time goodness.

There’s a golden rule to remember when it comes to getting great battery life from a notebook computer – if any feature is powered up, it’s sucking power. It sounds pretty simple but then most of the best rules are.

Any time any particular part of your notebook is powered up and set to maximum performance, it’s sucking the life out of your notebook battery and probably faster than you realise.

So if you’re struggling to get anything like decent battery life out of your notebook computer with Windows Vista, here are my five easiest ways of reducing power consumption and boosting battery life.

No.1 – drop the screen brightness

This one is a real simple one but if works quite effectively. Based on our testing with an AC power meter and connected to the AC mains electricity, approximately 10 to 12% of your notebook’s power consumption goes to just running the backlighting on your screen. By dropping the screen brightness, you reduce the power consumption and ease the load on the battery. Most notebooks have keyboard controls for dropping and raising the screen brightness. You’ll have to cope with a darker screen but in many cases, you’ll still see everything, particularly for standard office applications. And it doesn’t matter whether you have a desktop replacement or ultraportable notebook – you’ll see battery life improve by around 15 minutes, more for ultraportables.

No.2 – turn off wireless connectivity

Unless you absolutely must have access to your local network, turning off the wireless connectivity, whether its WiFi or Bluetooth, will ease the strain on the battery and leave more capacity for the parts of the notebook you do want running. Every function and feature you leave on draws power from the battery so if you don’t really need it, turn it off. Again, most notebooks have either dedicated slide switches or keyboard controls that turn wireless connectivity on or off.

No.3 – drop the hard drive power-down time

If you’re busy writing that novel or simply doing your school homework, reducing the down-time on your notebook’s hard drive will allow it to power down sooner. Even if you’re not accessing the hard drive for any files, the fact that it’s spinning away means its drawing power. Reducing the power-down time means it will be idling for less and saving your battery.

You can do this on Vista by clicking the Start orb and typing Power Options on the Vista search bar. Click the PowerSaver power plan option and then click Change plan settings.

Next, click Change advanced power settings. When the new Advanced settings windows comes up, scroll down the list until you find Hard disk. Double-click on it and again on Turn off hard disk after. Next to the new Settings option that appears, you’ll see a time rating next to “on battery”, typically 20minutes. Drop this down to 5minutes. This will ensure your hard drive shuts down after five minutes of no activity.

It’s important to stress however that hard drives that are constantly spinning down and spinning back up again may pull more power than just leaving it run constantly. That’s because it takes extra energy to get the drive motor up to speed. There’s also the possibility that the spinning down/up process could put more wear and tear on the hard drive itself. In any case, if you’re desparate, this is another way you can potentially save some power.

No.4 – Reduce the maximum CPU performance limit

This is a new feature built into Windows Vista. You can now set the maximum and minimum performance levels of your notebook’s CPU. By dropping the maximum performance percentage down to as low as you can afford, you’ll be reducing the amount of power it requires. The faster a CPU runs, the more power from the battery it needs so if you’re working on word processing, email or any application that really only uses a sniff of processing power, dropping the maximum performance level is like putting a brick under the accelerator pedal of your car – it just makes sure you can’t use up too much gas all of a sudden.

Again, click the Start orb, type Power Options on the search bar and hit the enter key. Choose Change plan settings next to your chosen power plan and click Change advanced power settings. This time when the new Advanced Settings window appears, scroll down to Processor Power Management. Double-click on Minimum Processor State and you’ll see two entries – on AC mains and on battery. Double-click on the on battery option and check the setting. This will set the processor’s minimum CPU usage percentage. The lower this setting, the slower the effective speed of the processor and the less power it should pull.

Next, click on maximum processor state and again you’ll see two entries – on AC mains and on battery. Click the On battery option and again change the percentage setting. How low you set it is up to you but it should be higher in value than the minimum setting.

Microsoft says Vista uses what’s called Linear Stop-Clock Throttling (LSCT), which is reducing the clock speed, and Demand-Based Switching (DBS), which switches the processor off momentarily when its not being used. If Vista cannot drop the performance using DBS, it will revert to LSCT to force the processor clock speed down. You can read more about it from http://tinyurl.com/3cmscf but be warned, it’s 47 pages of hard-going Word document.

No.5 – turn off Aero

Windows Vista’s probably most overrated feature is the new Aero interface and its zooming windows and Glass transparency effect. While they look great, there has been growing frustration amongst notebook vendors, HP and Lenovo in particular, over Aero’s affect on battery life.

Notebook vendors have found that the extra power required by the graphics engine to operate the DirectX9 effects of Aero is cutting into battery life. As soon as Aero is switch off, battery life reverts back to Windows XP levels.

So if you’re struggling to get decent battery life, Aero is one of the features you need to lose.

To do this, right-click on the Vista desktop, select Personalise from the menu and select Windows colour and appearance from the list. Now choose Open classic appearance properties for more colour options. From the new Appearance settings window, select Windows Vista Basic from the list of colour schemes. Click apply and this will turn Aero off.

Another way is to use our simple VistaAeroSwitch tool you can download from http://techlogg.com/content/view/110/35/. It allows you to switch Aero on or off with a single button click.

Windows Vista has some nice new features but as with any notebook computer, the more features you have, inevitably, the more power they’ll try to consume. Any feature you can switch off that isn’t important to you will conserve the battery’s power reserves and direct them to running what you do need on.

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3.20 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."