Have you ever looked at your laptop, and you thought that it deserved better treatment? Are you not sure of how to extend and enhance your laptop’s life? Well, stick around, and I’ll give you some tips on how to treat your laptop in the best way possible.
Our laptops have essentially become an extension of ourselves, and the tragedy of them giving up on you hurts. However, a laptop can’t last forever but there are several things you can do to prolong the life span of your computer and save quite a sum in the process.
Tips on how to maintain your laptop
Pay attention to your battery:
Batteries wear out no matter what you do, but you can postpone it as long as possible. According to “wired” keeping your laptop plugged in can kill your battery faster. This is because the nature of the lithium-polymer battery cell is that each cell is charged to a voltage level and the higher the charge percentage, the higher the voltage level. The higher the voltage level, the more stress the battery is put under. The ideal way to charge your battery is to charge it to 80% then unplug till it falls to 40%. Doing this consistently can prolong the life of your battery as much as four times.
You should also avoid putting your battery on direct heat. Batteries will degrade faster when exposed to extreme heat, so you should your laptop adequately ventilated by keeping the ventilation fans clear, keeping it off your lap, and keeping it on hard flat surfaces.
Lastly when the battery approaches its life cycle make sure to dispose it safely to avoid any harm to the environment.
Shutdown every once in a while:
Keeping your laptop in sleep mode is very convenient, but this puts stress on your laptop, and in the long run, you will see that it wasn’t a good idea. While your laptop is asleep, it still consumes power, and as mentioned above, it’s bad for your battery to stay plugged in continuously. Hibernation is a better option because it uses less power and it’s easier to resume your work, but shutting down is really the best option.
Operating systems like Windows will start lagging when it hasn’t been rebooted in a while. Shutting down also allows components in your system rest, this helps them last longer.
Clean your laptop:
Cleaning your laptop may seem like the simplest thing in the world, but most people don’t. When you want to clean your laptop, turn it off and unplug its power supply before you begin.
You should start with the screen, it is very fragile so you should be very careful when you’re cleaning it. You should use monitor swipes or electronically approved cleaning solutions with very soft and clean cloth preferably microfiber cloth. If you’re using anti-static sprays you should spray it on the towel and not directly on the screen.
You should also clean your keyboard by using the upholstery attachment on a regular vacuum, or you could just use a cleaning toothbrush to brush out dust and dirt from in-between the keys. You can also use compressed air, but like the toothbrush, it can end up pushing the dirt further under the keys. Use isopropyl to clean the keyboard surface by using cloth or cotton wool. Make sure moisture doesn’t get into the gaps between the keys or any other openings.
