Make Your Windows PC Last 30 Percent Longer by Adjusting These Settings
By dictating how your computer manages its battery power throughout the workday, you can vastly extend your PC's daily uptime. Photo-Illustration:The phrase 'you're doing it wrong' can apply to just about anything. For me, it's cooking an egg soufflé (too much mixing), cross-country skiing (not enough glide), and—worst of all—cranking on a Windows laptop all day and allowing it to die prematurely.
It's a problem, because I tend to increase the brightness setting too high and rely on Windows' default battery-saving options to get me through the day. I also like to be mobile, and so I rarely bother with a charger. When my PC laptop suddenly turns off, all the productivity hacks in the world can't save me.
Windows PC laptops can be tweaked to last about 30 percent longer if you adjust a few settings and create a 'power plan' for the day. These tactics can extend the battery life of a new machine and also make an older machine more usable by keeping it running further into the workday. For a typical machine, you can add a good 90 minutes of battery usage by following these tips. Use a Quick Standby Key Command
I'll start with the biggest power-saving tip that worked for me. While I'm working on a laptop, I sometimes switch to my phone or tablet and forget to put my laptop into standby mode. The laptop sits idle for a while with the screen running, which consumes power. I started using a key command that remedies that problem.
With Windows 11, when you press Alt + F4, you'll see a menu showing options to put the laptop to sleep or into standby mode. Either option will save power.
I decided to measure the impact of doing this. I used an Alienware x16 R2 gaming laptop all day without putting it into sleep mode, and it lasted about six hours with continuous usage (the company says the battery is supposed to last seven hours). I then used my trick to put it into sleep mode each time I made a phone call or switched to an iPad. The laptop ran about 90 minutes longer that day! It's a little annoying having to wait for the laptop to wake back up when you come back to it, but it's worth it. Lower the Refresh Rate on Your Display
I didn't realize this until I started testing laptops to squeeze out more battery power, but lowering the screen's refresh rate is also extremely effective at saving power. The reason has to do with how a laptop displays information, especially on older models.
A high refresh rate makes games and videos look smoother (more images are 'refreshed' on the screen), but the laptop has to work harder to push those pixels, and this drains the battery. Newer laptops like the Alienware x16 R2 I tested will lower the refresh rate automatically when battery reserves are low, but if your Windows PC is a few years old, you can manually adjust the refresh rate.
Click Start, then go to Settings > System > Display > Advanced display settings. Look for the refresh rate setting and select 60 Hz. Microsoft estimates that reducing your refresh rate to this setting alone can save between 10 to 30 percent on battery life. Your games and videos may not look as smooth, but if you're like me and use Google Docs all day, you'll barely notice. Create a Complex Power Plan
If you're not as willing to run at a reduced refresh rate all day, another trick is to use a power plan. Windows 11 lets you create multiple power plans for various tasks or parts of your workday, and then switch between them.
For example, you might check email in the morning and can rely on a lower brightness setting, lower performance, and a shorter delay before the laptop goes into standby mode. In the afternoon, you might prefer more power for watching videos and browsing the web. Then, at night, you can use a more balanced battery setting to finish the day.
To create power plans using Windows 11, open the Control Panel, navigate to the Hardware and Sound tab, then select Power Options and click Create a power plan.
Name the first plan 'Morning' and set the timer for going on standby and dimming the screen to only about 5 minutes when you're on battery power (not plugged into a power source). That saves more battery, but means you have to wait for the laptop to resume more often. This shouldn't be a problem if you're banging out emails. Click Change advanced power settings and lower the setting for Max performance rate to only 50 percent.
Now create an 'Afternoon' power plan that has a longer delay for screen dimming and standby (say, 30 minutes) and allows the computer to run at 100 percent max performance. Windows 11 has a built-in 'Balanced' power plan you can use in the evening. This will automatically adjust Windows' power-saving and performance settings based on how much battery life you have remaining.
Now, all you have to do is select the plan you want for each part of the day. You will find each power plan listed under Control panel > Power Options. Experiment with the power plan settings to see what works best for you. Configure a Few More Settings
It's worth experimenting with the power plans, but to achieve 30 percent more power on your laptop, there's a few other tweaks you should make. One is to use dark mode in Windows and whatever apps offer it. Surprisingly, this does save some battery power since the laptop doesn't have to work as hard to show a black background. To use dark mode, go to Settings, select Personalization, then Colors. Under Choose your mode, select Dark.
There's one last tweak to make your Windows laptop last longer, and it was a surprise to me. I am familiar with several of the power-saving tips before researching what works the best, but I didn't know about this one.
On a Windows 11 laptop, you can designate that specific apps use less power. First, start the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc. Look for the app you want to configure, such as Microsoft Edge. Use the drop-down arrow to select the main app process (with Edge it's called 'browser'). Right-click on it and choose Efficiency mode. This means the app won't use as much CPU processing when it's doing that process. This will save on battery power.
Adjusting all of these settings will have a major impact on your power usage. For me, the Alienware x16 lasted about 30 percent longer during a full day. You may even see more gains depending on which laptop you use. It means more productivity—and not having to carry a charger everywhere you go.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Alibaba Cloud Opens Second Korea Node
Alibaba(NYSE:BABA) Cloud is set to launch its second South Korea data centre by end-June, part of a 380 billion yuan ($52.9 billion) AI and cloud push. Bloomberg reports the new facility will bolster resilience and flexibility for local customers, supporting generative AI use cases across industries. Yoon Yong-joon, Alibaba Cloud's country manager, says the centre will deepen the digital ecosystem and spur AI innovation. This follows Alibaba's earlier commitment to massive infrastructure build-out in Asia. The move also aligns with global peers: SK Telecom and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Web Sevice (AWS) are partnering on a 103 MW AI data hub in Ulsan, with construction kicking off in August and an ultimate plan to house 60,000 GPUs, aiming to be Korea's largest AI-focused campus. A second Alibaba Cloud node strengthens data sovereignty and performance for enterprises in South Korea, reducing latency and ensuring compliance with local regulations. For Alibaba, it cements its standing against AWS, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Azure, and Google(NASDAQ:GOOG) Cloud in a key growth market hungry for generative AI services. As AI workloads surge, redundant, high-capacity data centres will be a competitive differentiator. Watch uptime metrics, customer onboarding rates, and GPU availability as the new centre goes live. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Data center spending soared amid rising GPU demand in Q1
This story was originally published on CIO Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily CIO Dive newsletter. Data center capital expenditures increased 53% year over year to $134 billion during the first three months of 2025, according to Dell'Oro Group research published Tuesday. The spike was driven by a surge in hyperscaler spending on AI infrastructure, particularly Nvidia Blackwell GPUs and custom accelerators, the research firm said. The four companies with the largest cloud footprints — AWS, Google, Meta and Microsoft — accounted for 44% of Q1 data center capital investments. Enterprise infrastructure spending — the second biggest category — accounted for one-third of the total, according to Dell'Oro. 'Despite some project cancellations by U.S. cloud providers, overall CapEx remains on track, with hyperscalers adjusting capacity rather than cutting investments,' Dell'Oro Group Senior Research Director Baron Fung said in the report. 'Enterprises, facing tighter budgets and tariff-related risks, are more cautious, prompting slight downward revisions to their CapEx forecasts.' An ongoing data center building boom sparked by generative AI adoption showed no signs of an early-year slowdown as hyperscalers raced to add compute capacity. Amazon reported $24.3 billion in Q1 capital expenditures, primarily to expand AWS' AI cloud infrastructure. Microsoft and Google weren't far behind, reporting $21.4 billion and $17 billion in CapEx for the first three months of the year, respectively. Dell'Oro Group expects the trend to continue. The firm forecasted a 30% year-over-year bump in data center investments for 2025, despite mixed economic signals triggered by tariff concerns and supply chain challenges. Last year, data center infrastructure capital expenditures grew 51% year over year to $455 billion. 'Tariff-related uncertainties are not expected to materially alter hyperscaler spending plans given their diversified global supply chains,' Fung said in the report. AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud plan to invest more than $250 billion in buildouts this year, in part to ease capacity constraints and satisfy growing customer demand for AI processing power. 'The availability of GPU and supporting infrastructure is supply constrained,' Fung said in an email. 'Demand is so strong that the top 4 U.S. cloud service providers have had to turn away smaller customers.' Amazon signaled two massive U.S. data center construction projects earlier this month — a $20-billion hub in Pennsylvania and a $10-billion project in North Carolina. The company is also planning a nearly $13 billion buildout in Australia, according to a June 14 announcement. 'As fast as we actually put the capacity in, it's being consumed,' Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said during a May earnings call. The executive noted that demand for AI compute services is 'unlike anything we've seen before' and characterized AI as a 'once-in-a-lifetime reinvention of everything we know' in an April letter to shareholders. AWS and its hyperscaler peers are jockeying to establish early market share, Fung told CIO Dive. Realizing a return on the investments will take time, he said. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
DELL's CSG Revenues Rise: Is an Improving PC Market the Catalyst?
Dell Technologies DELL AI prospects remain strong, with AI expanding from major cloud service providers to large-scale enterprise deployments and edge computing with Technologies is a prominent PC maker and is expected to benefit from the recovering demand driven by the PC-refresh cycle. The company is benefiting from the Windows 11 PC refresh cycle as many enterprise customers upgrade to new AI-capable Windows 11 devices, driving strong demand in the commercial segment. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, CSG revenues were $12.50 billion, up 5% year over year. DELL is also benefiting from an expanding partner base that includes NVIDIA, Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Imbue. In March, Dell Technologies and NVIDIA expanded their AI Factory collaboration, introducing new AI PCs, infrastructure, software, and services to accelerate enterprise AI adoption across various scales. Dell Technologies recently partnered with Lowe's to enhance customer and associate experiences by deploying advanced AI and PC technologies. Using Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA and high-performance Dell devices, Lowe's is optimizing inventory, improving asset protection, and streamlining store operations across its network. In March 2025, Dell Technologies and NVIDIA also expanded their AI Factory collaboration, introducing new AI PCs, infrastructure, software, and services to accelerate enterprise AI adoption across various scales. Dell Technologies suffers from stiff competition in the PC market from the likes of HP HPQ and Apple AAPL. HPQ is benefiting from a sustained focus on launching new and innovative products. The growing interest in generative artificial intelligence-enabled PCs, along with Windows 11 upgrades and a probable PC refreshment cycle, is likely to drive fresh demand for PCs in growing interest in generative AI-enabled PCs might give a fresh boost to HP's PC demand in the years ahead. The company forecasted that 40-60% of all PCs will be AI PCs in the next three years. To make the most of the growing opportunities in this category, HP has launched several AI PCs this year and plans to continue to expand its AI PC Mac business is benefiting from strong demand for M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips. In March 2025, Apple expanded its Mac portfolio with the new MacBook Air powered by the M4 chip with up to 18 hours of battery life and a new 12MP Center Stage camera. DELL's shares have risen 1.1% year to date, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector's return of 1.6%. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research DELL stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month Price/Sales of 0.77X compared with the Computer & Technology sector's 6.36X. DELL has a Value Score of A. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research The Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings is pegged at $2.26 per share, which has increased 11.5% in the past 30 days. This indicates a year-over-year increase of 19.58%. Dell Technologies Inc. price-consensus-chart | Dell Technologies Inc. Quote The consensus mark for fiscal 2026 earnings is pegged at $9.43 per share, which increased 6.91% in the past 30 days. This suggests 15.85% year-over-year currently flaunts a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Apple Inc. (AAPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report HP Inc. (HPQ) : Free Stock Analysis Report Dell Technologies Inc. (DELL) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
