What Can I Do to Extend the Battery Life of My Gaming Laptop?

We all know that gaming laptops have terrible battery life because the processor has to work harder than in other kinds of laptops. Our goal in this article is to find out how to extend the life of our gaming laptops and let us game for extended periods of time.

It is extremely undesirable for us to be disrupted by the annoying pop-up that says low battery, especially when we are in the midst of gameplay. This is not much of a problem when you are able to easily plug your laptop to charge, but sometimes it will be frustrating when the charger is nowhere to be seen.

Battery Facts

All batteries from any kinds of laptops are the same, regardless of the price of the model. Despite having different capacity and output, batteries that laptops use all operate with the same technology.

For a gaming laptop user, this is definitely not good news as you will feel scammed for paying so much more just to get the same technology for a battery that is used in a budget laptop. Looking to replace your gaming laptop? Check out some of the best windows gaming laptop for the price.

The size of the battery makes a difference; in short, the larger the battery, the longer the battery life. The problem with big batteries is that there isn’t enough space for laptops to accommodate large batteries. This problem is also shared by gaming laptops despite them being generally larger than normal laptops.

More power does not mean more battery life in the case of gaming laptops. This is because gaming laptops are designed to have high power and performance, boasting some of the highest definition displays, powerful processors, and high-end graphics cards. This high-powered outlook definitely requires a lot more power than other normal laptops.

Taking into account the high power demand and the moderately rated battery that even budget laptops use, this spells trouble for gamers. Trying to play a game while away from your desktop will be difficult without a charging port.

Hardware

It is essential for gamers to tweak their laptops with efficient hardware which can allow the highly demanding laptop to operate without compromising much on the efficiency.

Despite having better built-in hardware than other laptops, it simply isn’t enough to handle the high definition graphics of certain games. Even with one of the better hardware out there, a gaming laptop usually does not last more than two to three hours while playing games.

In order to extend the life of your gaming computer, you might want to consider the following tips and tricks.

How to Extend Battery Life

We all know that a gaming laptop will generally have poor battery life, however, there are a few tricks to make sure that you get the most out of your battery.

1. Brightness Setting

The easiest way to reduce the battery consumption of any laptop is to lower the brightness of the screens. If utilizing programs that contribute significantly to the system resources, it is recommended that you reduce the backlight in order to lower the risk of overheating and also make the lifespan of the display longer.

Another advantage of lowering the brightness is that it can help protect your eyesight. There is no need to use the display brightness at 100, using a reduced brightness level of 50 to 80 percent is the most desirable setting, unless you are out in the sun.

2. Close All Unused Applications

As a laptop is used as a portable desktop, it is crucial to always try to preserve your battery. In order to do so, always turn off any unused applications that may be slowly sapping your battery and RAM in the background.

3. GPU and Display Settings

The GPU is also called the Graphics Processing Unit, in order to maximize your battery life, some settings could be tweaked to limit the frame rate of some games. For example, a 120fps could be reduced to 60fps and the change in gameplay does not even change that much.

Along with this setting, reducing the screen resolution can also help to prevent your laptop from overworking and thus conserving more energy.

4. Defragmentation

It is recommended to defragment your systems within the laptop regularly. By doing so, this can reduce the battery drain rate. One tip is to defragment the system every month by either using a calendar to remind yourself or put it as a scheduled task.

5. Sleep Mode

When leaving the laptop for extended periods of time, it will usually go into sleep mode. Normally, the time to activate sleep mode is 20 minutes. However, in order to save more battery, perhaps changing the time to activate down could allow the laptop to engage its sleep mode more often, hence saving more battery.

6. Put Scheduled Tasks on Hold When Outside

Some scheduled tasks could be put on hold when traveling away from a charging port. Do remember to pause these tasks as running these tasks could drain your precious battery away.

7. USB Ports

Try to minimize the usage of the USB ports that are along the sides of your gaming laptops. Things like charging your phone with your laptop is a no-go for your battery life. When not using your USB devices, always remember to plug them out to conserve your battery.

8. Maintenance

Sometimes, it is good to open up your laptop and check the air vents within it to clean up the dust that gets stuck. Blocked or air vents filled with dust can reduce the efficiency of the cooling system, meaning more battery wasted.

9. Others

Some other random things to take note of that can reduce the battery consumption include: remove screensavers, mute the loudspeakers when not in use, place the laptop in cool places away from sunlight, and always update the software and drivers.

Conclusion

There you have it, some tips and tricks to reduce battery consumption and ultimately boost your battery life. However, we can’t do much about the limited battery life of a gaming laptop due to how it is built.

Always remember, if you are looking to play for a considerable amount of time, a charging port is highly recommended. If not, maybe a few hours of gameplay will be just right for your laptop to handle.