How to increase laptop battery life

[markmcc2007]

Hello, i am a bit of a noob at this so i would apreciate you time...

I have a HP Pavillion ZD8290EA with  17" Widescreen , Ati x600 , Intel P4 HT 3.40GHZ , Quad Boot, Suse, Ubuntu, XP and vista but the problem is that the battery life is only  1.30Hrs and i have tried alot to get it upto at least 2hrs but i dont know what to do and suggestions?

Thanks.

Mark.

[jool]

One of the best ways of increasing battery life is to pull down the brightness on the screen as much as you can while still being readable. Otherwise you can see if you have anything running in the background all the time, but if you get the same battery life on all OSs that probably isn't the problem. Finally, batteries do degrade over time and get worse performance until they stop working altogether.

[Shaun]

If you really need more battery life you could buy one of those secondary batteries that plug into your laptop as if they were the AC adapter.

[deleted]

or you could upgrade your battery. E.G. From a 2 hour one to a 6 hour one.

[markmcc2007]

or you could upgrade your battery. E.G. From a 2 hour one to a 6 hour one.

where would i get one of those 6hr batteries and i live in scotland so a website in the uk would be alot of help, t

Thanks Guys

p.s  does the Hyper Threading have any effect on the battery life?

[thegreenblob]

You could run at a lower clock speed when all is not needed. And you could turn down the screen brightness.

[deleted]

where would i get one of those 6hr batteries and i live in scotland so a website in the uk would be alot of help, t

Thanks Guys

p.s  does the Hyper Threading have any effect on the battery life?

I live in scotland too, you make it sound like a bad thing. You have a HP, mabey the HP site has upgrades for batteries, i know the Dell Site does.

I had a look at the HP Site and found one for your Laptop http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/ho/WF...5-65925995.html.

You may be able to get a better one cheaper elsewhere.

P.S. Hyper Threading will have a small impact on the battery, like running lots of programs.

[Deveant]

hmm this isnt so much to save consumption, but more to save battery life, when using it on AC, make sure that the battery is not connected, unless it is dead flat, always fully discharge ur battery b4 re-charging it, ie. dont go out for a few mins then come back into ur room and put it on the charger, take the battery out! or discharge it.

[manimal]

wifi seems to drain my battery (also an HP, but I think its a common thing  8-) ).  if you aren't needing to be connected to a network 100% of the time, you could try turning wireless off.  you should see an increase in life without wireless..

also, maybe there's a setting in the bios to lower the cpu speed, as well as the cooling power.  my old toshiba had 3 or 4 cooling levels, maximum setting would suck all the life out of the battery, yet the machine worked fine on the lower cooling settings. 

[Shaun]

always fully discharge ur battery b4 re-charging it, ie. dont go out for a few mins then come back into ur room and put it on the charger, take the battery out! or discharge it.

You know lithium ion batteries (which all modern laptop batteries are) don't have a memory effect, right? Their battery life in fact constantly deteriorates regardless of if you even use them or charge them.