Careful management of battery charging and power consumption settings on your laptop computer is essential if you spend a lot of time away from home or the office. To stop your Microsoft Windows 7 laptop from running out of juice at a critical moment, you can change the battery and power settings for the device. Select the battery meter icon from the desktop toolbar to change the laptop's power plan.
Step 1
Click the battery meter icon in the notification area on the right-hand side of the computer's desktop taskbar. This launches the battery and power plan options dialog box.
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Step 2
Find the battery status display at the top of the dialog box. This shows the remaining charge in the laptop battery, and indicates if the battery is currently plugged into a power supply and charging.
Step 3
Click the check-box beside the power plan option that best matches your current activities. Select "High Performance" if the laptop is connected to an external power supply and the battery is charging. Choose "Balanced" if you don't need to save power and you want Windows 7 to optimize the laptop's power settings. Select "Power Saver" if you need to run the laptop on only battery power for as long as possible.
Step 4
Click anywhere on the desktop screen to exit the battery and power plan options dialog box.
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