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Mitch Bartlett has written in several times before with tips and tricks. They are always excellent advice. This time, he is giving me a few pointers about extending the life of my battery in my laptop. I wanted to share these with you.

The number one priority in extending the life of your laptop battery is to avoid undue heat. Laptops run hot, and that heat can kill your battery. Some laptops allow you to remove the battery any time you are plugged into a wall. This will help save not only on heat, but actual use of the battery, as well. You can also get something similar to the ChillPak. This is a little matt that goes under the laptop, and helps to keep it cool. The Chill Pak is a simple, reusable, cooling gel pak, similar to a medical ice pack, but made of a special material which eliminates condensation, making it safe for use with a notebook computer. Just refrigerate the Chill Pak, place it under your notebook, and watch as your computer speeds up.

Another tip has to do with actual charging of the battery. I’ve always been told that you want to try to keep your battery charge around 40%. I don’t know the technology behind this, it’s just what I’ve been told. Feel free to enlighten me with a comment or follow-up email to this video.

You know how you periodically drain your battery all the way and then recharge it? Don’t do this too often… it can actually shorten the lifespan of the battery. You should only do this once about every 30 or so charges.

Be sure to also check out BatteryUniversity.com for more information, tips, and ideas.

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How to Increase the Life of your Laptop Battery

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http://live.pirillo.com/ -Eric left a voice mail for me, wondering why his processor speeds sometimes have a large variance. The good news is, this doesn’t mean the processor is failing.

Eric’s processor speed is 1.99GHz at times, and others it will be ‘down’ to 1.14GHz. This is actually normal, and nothing to worry about. If you’re using an Intel processor, then SpeedStep Technology is the result. Likewise, if you are using an AMD processor, then Cool’n'Quiet is the ‘culprit’.

Years ago, if you bought a computer with a let’s say 1GHz processor, that processor always worked at 1GHz. Now when you buy a processor, these third party applications I mentioned will automatically adjust the processor speed to match the state of your computer or laptop. This saves power and battery life. If you are running something with intense graphics, for instance, your processor will need to be running faster. When the computer is not doing much, or nothing at all, these applications will slow the processor down to save on power and/or battery.

If you do not have one of these apps and need them to help regulate your processor speeds, you can visit the Intel or AMD sites to obtain the proper one. Also, you can probably visit your pc manufacturer’s website to get them, as well.

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Processor Speeds

When was the last time you checked to see if your laptop battery had been recalled? Apple, Dell, Sony, Lenovo, etc. – doesn’t matter. Sooner or later, hardware is going to fail. In this case, it’s much better to be safe than sorry. They’re not gonna come running after you, though – take matters into your own hands before something bad happens.

Imagine if you’re on a plane and your battery decides to take a nosedive (no pun intended). You could have averted disaster by doing a little fact-checking beforehand. In case you thought it was going to be difficult to do, I’ve recorded a small video tutorial – and thanks to GearLive for providing the hardware:

I should register BatteryGoBoom.com at GoDaddy with my CHRIS1 coupon code, eh?

Battery Recall Video