Small Business

Extend Your Notebook's Battery Life

By Rick Broida

Updated on: July 9, 2007 / 3:00 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

Seems like your notebook never has enough juice to finish the task at hand. Could be your battery's wearing out (a distinct possibility if it's more than two years old). Or, it could be that you're not squeezing every ounce of power out of it. Tech blog Friedbeef's Tech offers 15 ways to extend your notebook's battery life. A couple of my favorites:

Dim your screen Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.
Cut down on programs running in the background iTunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn't crucial when you're on battery.

Did the author miss a trick? If you've discovered another power-saving solution, make sure to tell us about it in the comments!