ceo11

7 Posts

58896

November 10th, 2015 22:00

Battery Life XPS 13

Hi,

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed reduction in battery life after upgrading to windows 10?

Before the upgrade,the battery life was like 14 ~ 14.5 Hours. Now, it's about 6 ~ 7 hours (Max.)

Could it be a hardware issue? Is it covered under warranty? My system is barely a few months old.

Responses(2)

Harry342

5 Posts

0

November 10th, 2015 23:00

hi,

Try these simple steps to minimize your problems

Decrease Display Screen Brightness

The light of your display screen consumes the largest amount for your battery. And the only way is to lighten the brightness of your display screen. You can easily adjust the brightness of your screen Windows 10 whenever you seem it to be too high than the required amount. By reducing the screen brightness, you improve the battery life of your laptop. There are few methods which will help you in adjusting the brightness.

1. Now, the easiest and quickest way to adjust your screen illumination is from the taskbar. Cast a look at the extreme right corner of your taskbar and hit New notifications icon. A universal nerve of all apps notifications called Action Center will emanate. Combination of Windows and A keys will also fetch you the same results.

Notifications icon on Windows 10 - taskbar

Next, hit Expand button to see all the available options.

Now, you can see many tiles, each representing different sections. Look for the icon which has a brightness sign present on it. Hit on the brightness tile and the screen illumination will increase by 25%. Once you reach 100% of brightness, again click on the icon and it gets drop to 25%. So, this is the easiest and quickest strategy to adjust your screen illumination.

2. The easiest way is to use the keyboard keys. All you will do is look for the function (Fn) key and the brightness keys. Keep hold the function (Fn) key and then press the brightness keys to adjust the brightness of your screen.

3. Another way to adjust the brightness setting is from the Windows Mobility Center. Navigate the following path: Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Windows Mobility Center. The first option is of Brightness. Drag the brightness slider to the left and lower the screen brightness.

display brightness

Battery Saver

Battery Saver is a newly added feature in Windows 10 which is entitled to provide more output from your laptop’s battery while at the same time controlling the activities working on your system’s background. Fire-up Settings app on your screen from Start Menu.

Click System and you will see Battery Saver listed in the center of segments presented on the left column.

When you are into the Battery Saver you will notice its detail information in the right pane. When you turn on the Battery Saver, the feature will limit the background activity of your laptops. More on Battery Saver is penned on this article:

Adjust Sleep and Display Settings

The moment you are away from your laptop, leaving it in an on position, the screen consumes the battery power which is an unnecessary wastage of the battery life. But there is a feature which allows you to set a time to turn off the display or make it into a dim when you are not using it. You have this option available for both the situations, in on battery and in plugged in conditions.

To do the settings, first of all open Control Panel on your Windows 10 laptop and choose the Power Options. On the left pane of the Power Options window, click on Choose when to turn off the display link.

select power plan

This will lead to the arrival of Edit Plan Settings window.

edit plan settings

Here you will notice two options (Turn off the display and Put the computer to sleep), both for two mentioned situations (On battery and Plugged in). Suppose if you wish to turn off your screen display when you are not around and also when your laptop is on battery. So, use the drop down menu and set the time after which your display will turn off. Do the same when your laptop is plugged in. Now if you want to put the computer to sleep when you work is being done on your laptop, set the time that suits you so that you can save the battery life of your laptop. Once done, click on Save changes to save your settings.

Selection of Power Plan

Like the previous versions of Windows, Windows 10 also provides you a Power Plan. By default, the power plan for Windows 10 is Balanced. But as you want to save power, you can select the Power Saver option. You have also some advanced settings provided, but we recommend to access them only if you are aware of its functioning.

To select the power plans, let the Control Panel arrive on your screen. Click on Hardware and Sound option. Again click on Power Options. Now do your required settings here.

power option on hardware and sound window

Deactivate Bluetooth

Every laptop comes with the Bluetooth feature. If your Bluetooth is turned on and you are not using it for the time period, deactivate it. Because the Bluetooth radio is kept on, it will drain the whole battery power. To disable Bluetooth in Windows 10 bring the Settings window on your screen. Now go to the Devices and select it. Now go to the Bluetooth of Devices list. On the right pane of Bluetooth, turn the Bluetooth to the Off mode. In case you wish to switch it on in the future, use the slider and turn it on.

Unplug the Connected Devices

Another consumption of power from your laptop battery is the devices that are connected into your laptops. Even the USB mouse that you connect to your laptops, withdraw power from your laptop so that it can work. But it really consumes a little amount of power and so it is not of concern. But the external devices that are connected into your laptop consume good power of your battery. If the connected devices are inactive, unplug them from your laptop.

Enable Airplane Mode

The only reason to enable Airplane Mode is it will disable all the mobile data connection of your laptop. If you do not require Wi-Fi connections, this is the best way to save some power of your battery. To enable the Airplane Mode in your Windows 10 laptops, navigate the following path: Start Menu -> Settings App->Network & Internet -> Airplane Mode.

Now, take your attention to other half of the window. You will see an option to Turn on this service. Turn it on and save the life of your battery.

Windows Power Troubleshooter

Well, I was quite unknown about this way of controlling the power of your battery. Windows Power Troubleshoot is a tool that investigates the entire system and comes out with the common battery consumptions and repairs them. Let us see how to use this tool.

Follow this path: Control Panel -> Troubleshooting -> View All (left pane of the window)

view all link on troubleshoot

Now as you will see all the categories have arrived, look for the Power option. When you click on Power option, Windows will start scanning the system and will look for the issues and repairs them.

troubleshoot all categories

Deactivate Automatic App Updates

Deactivating the automatic app updates will not retain much battery power, but you can deactivate it if you don’t have any problem with the manual updates.

To do so, go to Store. Press user account logo and choose Settings option.

Settings option from user logo

The first option is App Updates. Toggle the option Update apps automatically to OFF.

General Things to be kept in Mind

The below mentioned are the few situations that if taken care of, the battery will experience a good life.

Screensaver: Switch off your screensaver or don’t use it. Your battery will be lost unnecessarily without any work being carried out.
Background programs: Uninstall the programs that run in the background and you are in no need of those programs. Or you can even disable them from automatically performing when the laptop is turned on.
CPU Usage: Give less load to your laptops CPU as huge installed and running programs might make CPU work more which results in the consumption of more power.
RAM: Take care of your RAM properly. If the RAM runs out of the space and need extra memory, it will then move the data on its hard drive page files and this hard drive consumes a lot of your battery. Best idea is to upgrade the RAM of your laptop.

Wow! With so many available options, I am sure you all must be trying out with all the methods so that you can save your laptops battery power as much as you can. Without wasting much time, let me also try the new ones that I also learned recently.

Try these simple steps to minimize your problem