If you’ve bought a laptop in the last few years, you may have noticed Windows XP’s built in power management features. They’re available on your desktop machine too, so even if you aren’t worried about battery power, you can still save a little money by conserving energy. Anything that helps lower your electric bill is a good thing, if you ask me.
You can tell Windows that after a certain amount of idle time, you want it to shut off your monitor and even your hard drives. until you come back and press a key or move the mouse. The settings are easy to find. Choose Start|Settings|Control Panel and click Power Options. In the Power Schemes tab, Windows gives you various standard settings such as Home/Office Desk, Portable Laptop and so forth. Below, you can see the affect your selection has on the settings. (If you prefer, you can adjust the settings individually.)
If you own a laptop and run on battery power a lot, you may be interested in other energy saving options as well. One tip die-hard travelers often try is lowering the screen’s brightness level. Many notebooks have a keyboard shortcut you can use to make the screen dimmer, which saves power.
Another thing to consider if you’re buying a laptop is that the more memory it has, the less power it will use. When Windows runs out of memory (RAM) to perform a task, it goes to the hard disk. Every time the hard disk has to do something, it drains power. Laptops with more memory don’t have to access the hard disk as often, so their battery life is better.
If you’re trying to eek the last bit of juice out of your battery while you’re working, shut down any software or hardware you aren’t using at the moment. Peripherals and software all require some amount of memory to run. Even all those little utilities lurking in the system tray take some resources.
Also know what type of battery you have. Some types need to be drained completely to hold a charge and some don’t. Newer laptops have lithium ion batteries that don’t have this "battery memory" problem, so you don’t need to worry about it. While you’re thinking about your battery, remember to clean the little metal contacts with a bit of rubbing alcohol occasionally. Clean contacts conduct better.