Our laptops help us work, surf the web, do some editing here and there and maybe watch movies and other videos. That is when not constantly searching for a charging cable because the battery drains quickly, and can sit comfortably and do things with peace of mind;
But we’ve all been there: when having a battery drain, unplugged the laptop, sat on the couch, and started working, only to have the device warn of a low battery or shut down completely. Oh no! It is so frustrating and painful, especially if it happens before saving your work. Can you relate?
As for me, I do relate. Mine, an HP laptop, once shut down amid a 1,000+ word document I was typing. I had to postpone working and sleep until the next day. Sad.
Regardless of the brand, whether Asus, Acer, HP, Apple, Dell, Lenovo or the others, we all want our laptop’s battery to last long enough to complete working and get us to a charger. But sometimes, it just doesn’t.
Why is my laptop battery draining so fast?
If you have noticed that your laptop’s battery is draining more quickly than usual, here are several potential causes:
- Your screen is too bright
The brighter your laptop monitor, the more energy it will consume because increasing brightness raises the total energy of the light source. That makes your laptop more energy-intensive and thus drains the battery quickly.
So, lowering the power consumption of your screen has a huge impact on energy usage and, consequently, your laptop’s battery life.
- Your laptop is exposed to extreme temperatures
Modern laptops are designed to function and perform well in a wide range of ambient temperatures, ideally 0° to 35°C (32° to 95°F). Therefore, when you expose your laptop to extreme hot or cold temperatures, its performance and reliability can suffer significantly.
Battery life is reduced at higher temperatures, causing quick drain. In contrast, battery capacity is reduced at very low temperatures, hindering output and resulting in cold-related malfunctions and usage failures like unexpected app and operating system crashes.
- You’re running too many applications
One of the main reasons your laptop battery is draining so fast is that there might be open applications running in the background even when you’re not necessarily using them. Some of your apps will continue to gather data in the background while you’re not using your laptop, and that can drain a lot of battery life.
Both Apple and Google have confirmed that closing your applications does absolutely nothing to improve your battery life. Still, the fact is that having too many apps or tabs open can make your laptop run slower, consuming a lot of energy, which leads to battery drain.
- Software updates
Software updates rarely affect battery life. But if you recently installed a new software and noticed your laptop’s battery draining quickly, be patient. It’s normal to see a drop in battery life after software updates, especially if your laptop computer has low storage space.
Moreover, your gadget may need some time to adapt as it indexes new files into the system and integrates the apps and all the latest features in line with the recent update.
- Turn off high-performance mode
The high-performance mode on a laptop adjusts power settings to enable you to suck the most performance you can out of your processors and other high-performing cores by running the CPU at a higher clock speed.
However, despite enabling high-performance operations, it increases power consumption and causes heat, which makes your laptop battery drain faster.
- You have a faulty battery
If your laptop’s battery is too old or damaged, you will get much less time out of a battery charge as it won’t hold charge for as long as it used to.
- Blame your settings
Some settings on your laptop may be why it consumes more battery power. For example, an “always on” backlight and a battery-saver setting that is always off will significantly reduce your battery life.
