More ways to conserve power?

Okay, I'm sure this has probably been discussed before, but as I'm not exactly the brightest in the techie department, I kinda needed some fresh help.

What ways are there to conserve battery power? At current settings, I'm lucky if my Acer makes it through one class. Well, that was before I turned the brightness down at least, but even after that, the battery life is still so excruciatingly short and not all my classes have accessible plugs. I bought this computer so I could take notes in class since I have trouble with writing. It currently isn't doing me much good though with it dying so quickly and me having 3 classes some days.

I've noticed that turning the wireless off helps a great deal, but unfortunately I need that a lot during class as well. (No, I'm not checking facebook during class!...most of the time... >_> <_< )

Ahem. So anyway...

Suggestions? Thankies <3

 

putting it into power saving mode so that the hdd turns off also since you don't need it all that much.
disable background running processes.
wifi will make a difference also.
not as substantial but lock the cpu speed to 800mhz using a1ctl
lower screen brightness.
Otherwise, buy a 7200/7800mah battery.

 

Just buy a bigger battery. I charge my laptop overnight and it gives me 8 hours... enough for 4 class a day =]

 

Agreed, my 6 cell last forever for all my classes during the day

 

Approx. how much would one of those batteries cost?

 

Just ordered an original Acer 6-cell from Amazon for $100.73 (USD) plus shipping (that's about thirty dollars chaeaper than the Acer Store, for the exact same thing). Not bad, and you get a better battery by ponying up the extra 20-30 dollars for the OEM battery, versus the third party versions.

A link http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CTL5UM

 

Here is a great tip for conserving power on the aspire one.

utilize the "Screen OFF" option.

Hold down Fn, and press F6

This will turn off the LCD display. To turn it back on, just hit any key.

By using this feature during periods of inactivity, you can save a considerable amount of power.

 

You should get 2 to 2.5 hours with light use. You can do most of the following within XP, but the A1ctl download gives you some quick off/on toggles for ethernet, wi-fi, webcam, run at 800mhz instead of full power, and reduce fan (both power and noise saving.) Lots of reference to it on this site to installing, setting it up.

http://nodadev.wordpress.com/pc-projects/a1ctl/

 

Thanks for posting the link to the A1ctl program. I had been seeing it mentioned in a lot of posts but hadn't known where to find it.

 

Locking the CPU speed to 800Mhz will not save power!

The reason is that the CPU is not the largest power consumer -- the support chips are. The CPU speed is automatically set according to load, which means it is set (by default) to minimize execution time. The lower the execution time, the faster the system can be put to sleep. If the CPU is locked to a lower speed, computation will take a longer time, consuming more power in the peripheral chips.

 

Fn + F3

Change Power Options to Max Battery when traveling. Makes a big difference on CPU thus conserving power.

I have mine set to Home/Desktop when plugged and Portable/Laptop when on battery but Max Battery saves more power than Portable/Laptop.

Great utility!