Long Live Your Laptop Batteries

laptop batteries are like people--eventually and inevitably, they die. Battery technology may improve a bit over time (after all, there's plenty of financial incentive for better batteries), but, while interesting possibilities may pop up, don't expect major battery breakthroughs in the near future. Here's how to keep your laptop battery working for as long as possible. With luck, it could last until you need to replace that aging notebook (perhaps with a laptop having a longer battery life). I've also included a few tips on keeping the battery going longer between charges, so you can work longer without AC power. Squeezing every drop of juice out of a lithium ion battery (the type used in today's laptops) strains and weakens it. Doing this once or twice won't kill the battery, but the cumulative effect of frequently emptying your battery will shorten its lifespan. Most modern laptops are designed to shut down before the battery is empty. If you're going to be working exclusively on AC power for a week or more, remove the battery first. An unused battery loses power over time, and you don't want all the power to drain away, so remove it when it's at least half-charged. Even inserting a battery into a running laptop can damage the system. So only remove or reinsert the battery when the laptop is completely off or hibernating. If you've never removed your laptop's battery and don't know how, check your documentation. (If you don't have it, you can probably find it online.) The instructions generally involve turning the laptop upside-down and holding down a button while you slide out the battery. While you should keep a battery cool, the last thing you want is a wet battery, and condensation is a real danger in the fridge. Also, before you take the laptop on the road, reinsert the battery and let it charge for a few hours before unplugging the machine. Allow the battery time to get a full charge before you remove the AC power. Heal a Sick Battery Myth: You can rejuvenate a worn-out battery. But if the battery is running out unexpectedly fast, or if your laptop is having trouble figuring out how much power it has left, you might be able to fix the battery's "gas gauge," so it at least gives a more accurate reading. Drain it of all its power (yes, this is the exception to the "don't drain the battery" rule mentioned above), recharge it to 100 percent, and then repeat. With luck and proper care, your battery will still be useful when you're looking for a new laptop. But RAM uses electricity as well, and unless you're doing a lot of multitasking (not a good idea when you're on battery power), more RAM won't reduce hard drive use. The tips above should lengthen the time before you need to replace your laptop's battery. But on a daily basis, we're far more concerned with another type of battery life: how long we can keep our laptop running without AC power.