6 Best Practices to Lengthen Your Laptop Lifespan
Looking for tips to maximize your laptop’s life? You’re in the right place!
We all want the best out of our laptops, but there are some things that are just unavoidable. Running out of battery life or broken components are just one of them. Whilst some things you do may make your laptop die much sooner, there are things you can do so you won’t encounter issues such as battery drain or boot failure sooner than it should.
Here are six tips to extend the lifespan of your laptop’s life in general.
1. Don’t Unplug it!
I don’t mean never, but some people tend to use their laptop unplugged and then plug it back in when it needs charging. You might think that you are stopping the battery from overcharging but this is a myth – it doesn’t do that. All you are doing is shortening the life of your battery and the reason for this is that every rechargeable battery only has a certain number of charge and discharge cycles – leaving it unplugged until you need to charge it means using those cycles up much faster.
2. Don’t Ignore the Buzzing!
If you ever hear a loud whining or buzzing noise from your laptop, take it to a computer repair center immediately. Your laptop has just two components that can possibly make this noise – the hard drive and the fan. If either makes a noise, it is an indicator that they are failing so don’t wait for the sound to go away because it won’t. At best, it will just get louder, and at worst, you can lose data, or your laptop can burn out. While a data recovery service or software might be able to help you, it’s better to prevent losing your data in the first place. So back your data up and get the repairs done.
3. Use an External Keyboard
The keyboard gets the most physical use and, while it has been designed for heavier use it is not usually possible to replace if it goes wrong. Either use a keyboard protector to keep stray food and other bits of dirt out from under the keys or purchase a separate keyboard.
4. Carry Out a Regular Drive Defrag
Computer file systems work in such a way that, over time, your hard drive performance will decrease. Performing a regular defragmentation of your data is a good idea unless you are using an SSD (Solid state drive) as defrag can reduce the lifespan. Some of the newer operating systems such as Windows 10 offer up a way of doing this safely but not all operating systems do.
5. Don’t Walk Around with Your Laptop
Most laptops still have a mechanical hard drive which spins at between 4,200 and 7,200 rpm. Many users are not aware that the head of the drive hovers at just a tiny distance, less than a hair’s width from the spinning surface of the drive so, carrying your laptop around under your arm while it is still running is not a good idea. Solid state drives are different as they don’t have any moving parts.
6. Turn it Off Properly
One of the quickest ways to reduce the lifespan or even destroy your laptop is to shove it in its bag or shut the lid down before it properly turns off. The operating system or applications hang while the laptop is powering down and not waiting will leave the laptop running until the battery dies. If you make a habit of this, you may even burn out your hard drive. So always shut down your computer properly and you’ll get much more out of it.