The care and feeding of laptop batteries

Many articles talk about extending the run-times of your laptop's battery, but that's not what this is about. Rather, I'm talking about extending the overall life of your batteries. Common battery-care mistakes will reduce your batteries' service life and lead to needless and costly early replacement.

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Extend the life of your laptop's battery

A reader named Rick got a new laptop for the holidays and is wondering how to maximize the life of its expensive batteries:

• "I just got a new laptop with Windows 7 for Christmas. The new laptop has a 6-cell lithium-ion battery. How can I get the most life from my new laptop's battery and make it last the longest?

  "Should I periodically charge and then use/drain the battery? Should I leave the battery in the laptop even when I'm using the AC plug? Will heat from the laptop when it's plugged into AC affect the lithium battery?"
  

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That's the subject of the lead item in my column this week at Windows Secrets. I also discuss four other topics:

• What causes the 'event ID 51' disk errors?
• Should I use Safe Mode for routine maintenance?
• Does a ReadyBoost flash drive really boost?
• What's this about Windows 7's 'God Mode'?
  

Access to these items is by a kind of honor-system principle: You decide what the content is worth, and whatever you decide to pay lets you in to *all* the paid-edition content (not just my columns) for a full year.

Full info (you start by signing up for the spam-proof free version) here:
http://windowssecrets.com/

Here's what in the rest of the issue (I'm just one of several contributors):

Free Newsletter content posted on Jan. 21, 2010:

TOP STORY By Yardena Arar Patch arrives for IE hole targeted by Chinese Microsoft downplays the threat, releases a patch Find the right mix of preventive measures The best defense: Keep all your apps updated WACKY WEB WEEK By Stephanie Small This vending machine gives and gives and gives

You get all of the following with a paid subscription:

LANGALIST PLUS By Fred Langa Extend the life of your laptop's battery The care and feeding of laptop batteries What's causing the "event ID 51" disk errors? Should I use Safe Mode for routine maintenance? Does a ReadyBoost flash drive really boost? What's this about Windows 7's "God Mode"?

INSIDER TRICKS By Scott Dunn Five productivity-enhancing Registry tweaks Before you begin, create a restore point Shift your Start menu into overdrive Don't let stalled programs slow you down Shut Windows down in the blink of an eye Suppress Windows' annoying low-disk-space pop-up Add an encryption option to your context menu If things go awry, just push the Panic button

PERIMETER SCAN By Ryan Russell Browser forensic tools find malware entry points Your browser history tells the malware tale Pinpoint the time of the malware infection Examine your browser's cache for clues Other investigative tools for your browser

Again you decide what the content is worth, and whatever you decide to pay lets you in to *all* the paid-edition content (not just my columns) for a full year.

Full info (you start by signing up for the spam-proof free version) here:
http://windowssecrets.com/

Posted via email from Fred's posterous