We have compiled a list of 15 tips to help you extend your battery life to its full potential.

1. Keep the battery contacts clean. Remove your battery periodically and clean down the little metal contacts with a dry cloth. This stops the build up of dirt/grime from making your battery work harder.

2. Always read the manual which comes with your laptop. It will have some tips included for ensuring maximum battery capacity/life.

3. Ensure your laptop is not too low a spec for the applications you are running. If necessary, upgrade the RAM to ensure the machine is not having to work so hard.

4. Lower your screen resolution. If your laptop is running at the higher end of the resolution scale, it will be working harder, and this will reduce battery life. If you do not need the higher resolutions, then reduce this.

5. Turn off WiFi when not in use. There is a switch on all laptops which have built-in wireless capability. Turning this off when not being used will reduce battery wear.

6. Remove all external devices when not in use. This includes printer connections, USB memory sticks, etc. Removing these when not in use will reduce work for the laptop.

7. Remove the battery when plugged into the mains. This will give your battery a well-earned break when it is not needed. Do not allow it to fully discharge though, 40% charge is thought to be the optimum.

8. Change ‘idle’ mode to hibernate, rather than stand-by. Hibernate completely shuts the laptop down, therefore saving battery power.

9. Don’t block the Air Vents. Lots of people try to use their new laptop on their knee, or on a bed, etc. This blocks the air vents at the bottom of the machine and causes the laptop to work less efficiently. you can also lead to a breakdown if your laptop overheats, and this might not be cheap to repair.

10. Run Disk Cleanup & Disk Defrag (plus any other system optimisation techniques you use) regularly, as these will keep your laptop operating at peak performance, and lengthen battery life.

11. Run your battery completely down and recharge it once every 2 months or so. Providing you have followed all the tips above, this will help extend its life.

12. Keep your battery cool. Do not let the battery get too warm, and do not set it beside a radiator or in direct sunlight, etc. A cool battery performs better.

13. If your laptop has not been used for a while (or the battery has not been used for a while), fully discharge and then recharge the battery.

14. Check your power management settings on your laptop, and ensure it is making full use of these.

15. Reduce the frequency of things like auto-saves, disk scans, etc. These will make the processor work hard, therefore lowering battery life.

Remember that the newer laptops, whilst having increasingly better batteries fitted, are the most graphic & processor hungry, and these will need a little effort to get full use of your battery.