Life Extending Tips for Laptops

Life Extending Tips for Laptops

Filed under Computer Maintenance

Oct 28
Are you thinking about trading your old laptop for a newer model? Well before you do look over these tips that could help you extend the life of your laptop.

Maybe you have noticed that the laptops have come down in price so that most people can afford them now. But you can also have a significant amount in yours. Most computers cost between $500 to $2500 dollars. So buying a laptop every couple of years or so isn’t really an option. Most of us still need to get all the mileage out of them as we can. Besides do we have time to go into a new computer and start setting a new one up to our liking?

Your old laptop is still running pretty good. But it has slowed down some maybe the hard drive is not as big as you would like. Well if you still like your old laptop and want to use it some more then these tips will surely help.

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Keeping The Laptop Cool
Heat can kill a laptop just as about as fast as water. The hotter it runs the hotter the components operate. This heat can shorten the life of them fast. If you just lay your laptop down on a pillow or mattress this will block the air flow from underneath the laptop and this will cause it to even run hotter. The same thing can happen if you like to put your laptop in your lap.

They make a laptop cradles that you can get at any electronics store or online. This keeps the laptop tilted up so that air flow stays circulating. You can get them that are plainjane models that just hold you computer up. But also there are models that have cooling fans embedded in them that circulate the heat from under the laptop. There are also cooling pads that draw

heat away from the laptop and your legs. This is also helps the internal fans in your laptop by not having not to run as long or often.

You also need to blow the bottom of your laptop out with compressed air every once in awhile. This will help get the dust and debris out of the laptop. This can also cause your laptop to overheat. A computer is a lot like a car in this way. Just like keeping your car clean inside and out. You need to do the same to your computer.

Go SSD Hard drive
Since laptops are mobile, this makes them prone to being dropped, banged, and otherwise damaged. This can cause the platters and heads to become out of calibration and out of commission. These standard hard drives also generate quite a bit of heat, and this will get worse as they get older. So keeping the laptop as cool as possible is critical. But with SSD drives they have no moving parts, so they are less susceptible to shock, vibrations, and extreme temperatures. This is also good to look for a computer that has a SSD drive. Right now SSD drives will cost more than standard hard drives. But if your laptop is like a running back in the superbowl it could be a good idea to look for one.

Protect Your Laptop
Just as you would protect precious china dishes, or your vehicle, you need to protect your laptop. You can do this by not every tossing your laptop. Lay it gently on the bed, or table. Even though a bed is soft it can still jar the laptop. Besides you might toss it a little harder than you thought and it could bounce off of the bed onto the floor. (If this happens you might want to read my article on data recovery).

Always use a computer case to carry your laptop in. These are specifically made to protect the laptop from all sides. These cases are very durable and can take the brunt of force that will be applied to the laptop if no case is used. Many cases now have pockets for accessories for the laptop. Like carrying the cradle for your laptop. So if you take care of your laptop it will last you for years to come. There is an old saying (you get what you pay for). There are soft cases and hard case styles. I use a soft case, but it has a pouch for the laptop and also a pouch for the cradle. It cost about $30.00.

I have had it for about 5 years now, and it is still as good as new. A GOOD WAY TO HANDLE YOUR LAPTOP WHILE ON THE MOVE IS TO TREAT IT LIKE AN EGG. I could name many different manufacturers of good cases. But I will leave it up to you to find and decide on which you want.

Caring For The Battery
1. Your battery will last for approximately 500 charge/discharge cycles.
2. To extend the life of your battery is to remove it while it is plugged in to an ac source. (Unless your charging the battery).
3. Never carry the laptop with the battery installed.
4. Always use the ac adapter when possible. (This means that you won’t be using the life cycles as fast).
5. Try not to overcharge your battery. (This will shorten the life of the battery).
6. Never leave your laptop or battery in direct sunlight or extreme cold. (Heat/cold can ruin a laptop and/or battery).

The older your battery gets means that you will have to charge it more often.

Everybody likes the standby on laptops. This lets you get up and running in half of the time. But leaving your computer on standby still uses power. If you are on ac power then it won’t really matter. But if you are on the battery. It can use up to about 10% of your battery’s cycle while its on standby. This means that you won’t have a fully charged battery to work with.
Instead of using standby try using hibernate instead. This will preserve the laptops current state by writing to the hard drive as a file. This requires no power to keep everything as it was when it was shutdown. Hibernate simply loads the file, and returns the laptop back to the state it was before. But it doesn’t use any power when its hibernating. While using hibernate mode will make it take a little longer to start up, it is still faster than shutting your computer completely down.

Hard drive Reformatting
You don’t need to get a new laptop just because yours is getting slow. Most of the time the laptop slows down because of data that has been put on the hard drive. Hard drives doesn’t put data on hard drive in any particular order. It just puts it on the hard drive anywhere it can find a empty spot. This causes the hard drive to become fragmented. This means that the data is scattered all over the hard drive so that the laptop has to search all over the hard drive for all the data it needs to operate. This makes programs load slower, data retrieval is slower. You should defragment your hard drive at least once a week. Some people wait until the computer tells them that the hard drive needs to be defragmented. The trouble I have with this method is the more fragmented the hard drive is the longer it takes to defragment it.
(Example: If a hard drive is 1% fragmented it will take a certain amount of time for it to defragment it. But if a hard drive is 25% fragmented. It could take as long as eight hours to defragment it).

Also when you add/remove programs from your laptop, surf the web, or delete/add files to your hard drive, this will fragment the hard drive somewhat. Anytime you install/remove programs this will also change the registry data. This can cause your laptop to slowdown. A good registry cleaner can cure this problem. (BE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY BEFORE CHANGING IT.)
You can do this, but unless you are really familiar with the registry I wouldn’t recommend it.

Another way to speed up your laptop is to use the system restore disk that came with the laptop or if it was new when you bought it. It gave you the option of burning a system restore disk. Use this disk and it will return your computer to the factory settings before you started adding all the stuff that you have put on it. Yes, I know that you will have to re-install all the programs and but at least the laptop will be just about as fast as when you bought it.

(HINT:) Backup your laptop to an external drive, (which are really cheap). I would suggest this anyway because if your hard drive fails suddenly. You will have all or most of your work and programs backed up. So all you would have to do is transfer everything back when you get the laptop up and running. Be sure to backup your emails and favorites also.

Depending on your system these little tips can save you hundreds and maybe thousands of dollars, not to mention the time saved.

Jesse Auburg Online Marketing Entrepreneur
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Tagged as: battery, computer case, cooling fan, formatting, laptop, new, old, SSD hard drive

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