Tech Tips: Flip Quickly Between Apps, Maintain Laptop Battery Health

Tech Tip of the Week

We’ve all been there – so many windows and apps open on your laptop that you can’t find the one you need.  

Quickly jumping between applications on your Windows PC or Mac is simple. To quickly go to another app, hold down the Alt and Tab keys at the same time. Each time you press the keys, you can open another app. On the Mac, press the Command and Tab keys to get the same effect.

Battery Health

Battery Basics

Laptop batteries can handle a defined number of charge cycles. Around 500, sometimes more. A charge cycle is one full discharge to 0% and then recharged back up to 100%.  Here’s the math.  If you discharge to 75%, then back to 100%, you’ve used a quarter of a cycle. As your battery matures, each charge cycle decreases your battery’s capacity.  Simply put, the fewer times you drain your battery, the longer it lasts.

Best practice?  Let your battery drain to about 20%; then fully charge.

But like most things, your mileage may vary.

Protect your battery

For maximum battery life, do these things:

• Only use the laptop charger that came with your laptop. 

  • Don’t use an off-brand.

  • Don’t use a similar charger that has the same type of port.

    • Just because it has the same type of charging port, it doesn’t mean that It provides the current/voltage specific to your laptop.

  • If you are unsure, call us.  We’ll let you know if it’s the right one.

• When using your laptop at home, make sure there is an air pocket under your laptop. Without it, the laptop can overheat.

  • Don’t place it on a fabric ottoman – place a magazine or other hard surface between the laptop and the fabric.

  • Do you keep your laptop in your lap?

    • When it starts getting hot, it’s probably not getting the air pocket it needs.  Switch positions to provide proper venting.

Battery-friendly Settings

• Turn the screen down.  70% is about right for rooms with lots of light. You can go down to 20% for dark rooms. 

• Close the apps you aren’t using.  You can always open them back up when you need them.

• Enable your battery saving mode. Look for it in "Settings."

• Switch off Wi-Fi when you’re off the grid.

• USB sticks and devices can drain your battery.  Unplug them if you don’t need them.

• Select "Hibernate" instead of "Sleep" when you take a break.

Extra Credit

Your browser can be one of your biggest power drains, particularly if you keep lots of tabs open.  Save your battery by closing those tabs.  Want a way to manage them?  Put your favorites in bookmarks.  It’s an easy way to get to the websites you use frequently.  Be sure to close the tabs when you’re finished. 

For more

If you have any technical questions or problems, please contact your IT Service Desk at 919-684-9200 or citdl@mc.duke.edu.

Check out IT's blog for more on this and other topics.