What Contributes to Poor Battery Life in Gaming Laptops?
A laptop intended for gaming carries numerous hardware and software components that contribute to why its battery can draining quickly. The most typical components that contribute to the poor battery life in gaming laptops are high performing processors, discrete GPUs, multiple hard drives, and oversized keyboards.
Hardware Components
When you buy a gaming laptop, the starting point to consider is the amount of power it can provide – because this greatly impacts the battery life of your gaming laptop. High-end gaming laptops feature high performing processors such as Intel Core i9 or AMD Ryzen 9, which use more power than low-end processors.
Discrete graphics cards such as NVIDIA Geforce RTX or AMD Radeon HD Graphics consume more power than a built-in graphics card. The built-in graphics card is typically found in a non-gaming laptop and it’s included to increase processing performance for tasks such as spreadsheet processing, word documents and powerpoint.
Multiple hard drives and oversized keyboards can also negatively impact your laptop battery life. Multiple hard drives mean more power to the system, resulting in more battery drain. Oversized keyboards require more LED lights to light up the bigger keyboard, e.g. the backlit keyboard found in many gaming laptops.
Software Components
The software components also contribute to battery draining. Games typically require more power and processing performance, leading to higher power consumption. Additionally, these high-end games typically include 3D graphics and advanced sound systems, meaning more power to be consumed.
Gaming laptops also tend to run longer because gaming sessions tend to last longer. Furthermore, gaming laptops will tend to take more time to load programs and perform operations compared to a non-gaming laptop.
Laptop Cooling System
Gaming laptops come with an advanced cooling system to help support the intensive gaming sessions, while providing maximum performance. A convertible laptop, e.g. a laptop that can also be used as a tablet, comes with a fan cooling system which also affects battery life in a negative way. Fans reduce the battery life but are needed to prevent the laptop from overheating.
Extras
In addition to the components from the hardware and software, there are also other factors that can cause battery draining. Some of the extras include additional programs running in the background such as automatic updates, streaming downloads, etc.
These processes that are running unnoticed in the background can put your laptop’s battery under strain and can account for up to 30% of your battery life. It is suggested not to run unnecessary applications and to disable the automatic updates.
How to Optimize Your Laptop Battery Life?
Having a well optimized gaming laptop battery life is beneficial as it allows gamers to extend the amount of gaming sessions. Here we look at different ways to optimize your laptop battery life.
Increase Battery Performance Settings
It is possible to optimize your laptop battery life by changing the power settings. Within the power settings, you can select ‘high performance’ mode for gaming. This mode allows the laptop to access higher power levels, enabling higher performance when gaming.
Another setting you can use is the ‘Battery saver’ mode. This mode helps to reduce the battery’s energy consumption and helps to keep the laptop running for longer.
Tune Your Charger
It is important to make sure that the charger setting is matched with your laptop’s settings. By calibrating your charger to match your laptop’s settings, you can reduce the power consumption and therefore optimize your battery life.
Reduce Graphics Settings
Games use an array of graphic settings including resolution, anti-aliasing, and shadow effects to name a few. All these settings have an impact on battery life. One way to improve battery life is to reduce the graphics settings.
By reducing the graphical settings, your laptop can deliver more battery life. This is especially useful if you are traveling and don’t have access to an electrical power point.
Keep Your Laptop Clean
If you are using your laptop for more than it is intended for, chances are that the laptop can start to accumulate dust and dirt. This can impede the airflow, meaning the battery will be working harder and reducing your battery life.
It is advised to regularly clean the laptop to make sure that it is able to work efficiently.
Follow Good Battery Charging Habits
It is recommended to follow battery charging habits when using your gaming laptop. Allow your battery to discharge during gaming sessions and avoid charging at 100%. By doing this you can extend the lifespan of the battery and you will be able to play longer.
It is important to keep an eye on the battery’s health and avoid overcharging the laptop. Pay attention to the temperature levels and protect the laptop from extreme temperatures.
Upgrading the Internal Components where Possible
High-end gaming laptops are equipped with powerful processors and discrete graphics cards that consume lots of power. By upgrading to a more efficient processor, you can reduce the power consumption and optimize the battery life.
The same applies to the graphics card. Upgrading to a more efficient graphics card can reduce the battery drain. It may also be cost-effective to upgrade the battery to one with a capacity greater than what comes with the laptop.
Conclusion
To conclude, there are several contributing factors to why a gaming laptop’s battery may be draining quickly. By following good battery charging habits, reducing graphics settings and optimizing power settings, gamers can benefit from extended gaming sessions.
Upgrading the internal components where possible is also beneficial for optimizing battery life. Ultimately, managing and optimizing the laptop battery life can help reduce the impact of power drain and extend the lifespan of the battery.
