If or when you buy a laptop, you always have an idea in mind to purchase a machine that can stick with me for the long term. Either be it for gaming, work, or simply to watch movies all day long, spending money on such devices is a huge deal.
This goes without saying that every gadget you own needs to be handled with care and utmost carefulness. You might not have thought about this enough but laptops are subjected to more wear and tear than your desktop system. You take it around with you to places that expose them to dust and dirt. All of these can very well be taken care of in order to have a longer life span.
Let’s be practical about the fact that you can afford to buy an expensive laptop every 3rd year. Hence to avoid such situations, we have listed out ways to make your laptop last longer than you would have thought about. Any laptop can easily last around 5 years or even more if taken care of certain things we have mentioned in this guide.
10 Ways To Make Your Laptop Last Longer
1. Clean your Laptop Regularly
There is no doubt in the fact that dust or dirt is the major reason that your laptop loses its potential to perform as well as when you first bought it.
Even when you give your machine for repair, the very first thing that they look into is the immense amount of dust.
You might have noticed your laptop getting a lot heated up than usual as the years pass by, the major reason for this being the fan blades are accumulated with dust all over them.
This stops the fan from functioning properly, thus putting a lot of pressure on the system. Similarly, the dust accumulates even on your keyboard due to the same reason. Here is how you can keep your laptop clean.
- Use microfiber cloth to wipe the surface.
- Keep your room clean to stay away from dust accumulation
- Use rubbing alcohol for a thorough clean
- Use compressed air to clean the fan blades
2. Use Measures to Prevent Overheating
Another major reason that your laptop simply gives up is that it is overheating. Any laptop you will purchase is bound to heat up no matter what task you are performing on it. But many times, you can hear the fan running faster than usual and your laptop getting overheated.
This could be because of a multitude of reasons such as dust accumulation on the fans, gaming, using Chrome, and a lot of other reasons. But there are ways you can choose to prevent overheating that will only help your laptop last longer.
- Keep your laptop and your surroundings clean
- Avoid consistent use of a laptop for a longer period of time
- Install a tool to control the fan speed on your system, thus preventing the CPU to not working hard
- Do not expose to direct sunlight
- Elevate your laptop for better ventilation
- Remove the charger when fully charged to let the system cool down
3. Understand Battery Charge Cycle and Prevent Excessive Drainage
Even if your laptop is working at its best after years, the battery might live up that long.
Every laptop has a certain charge cycle after which it stands to wear down slowly.
In order to protect your battery from excessive drainage, there are so many options you can try out and follow in the long run.
Also, you can provide the system with proper cooling pads or thermal cooling so that there isn’t too much pressure on the battery to function.
Similarly, the understanding of a proper charge cycle will only help you keep track of the low power and high power of the battery. Here are some steps you can choose to go with in order to protect the battery from excessive drainage
- Remove the battery when fully charged
- Prevent any overcharging and do not leave the system plugged-in
- Turn off Bluetooth and Wifi when not in use
- Close multiple tabs on the screen if not of any use
- Make sure to shut down the system once every day and not leave it in the sleep state.
4. Keep your Laptop away from Direct Sunlight Exposure
As we had already discussed how your laptop can simply overheat with an extensive workload or even due to dust accumulation on the fan blades.
Another reason that the overheating takes place is due to exposure to direct sunlight.
You might have the urge or habit to sit in the sun during winters which is a great deal however it is simply not advisable to take your laptops with you in the sun.
The same goes with leaving it out in the sun either on your balcony or on your car dashboard. The cooling system can only handle so much heat and might fail to work. Here are some precautions you can take in order to make your laptop last longer.
- Make sure to avoid working on your laptop under the sun for long hours
- Always keep it under a shade
- Use certain apps on your laptops to monitor the temperature
- Allow your system to cool down if exposed to the sun
5. Laptop On Bed- A Big No!!
Even though we might be simply typing this off from our bed, it is simply not advisable to do so for multiple reasons.
You may have noticed a lot of times that your laptops get a lot heated while you are working from your bed than on any table or level surface.
The reason behind this is that while you are working from your bed, the laptop might generally be kept on a pillow, mattress, or similar surface. Such circumstances do not allow the heat to dissipate through that surface and thus heat up your system. The fans do try hard to keep the system cool which is why they tend to sound much more.
Even if you have decided to use the laptop from your bed, make sure to bring a bed table that is easily available on the internet. These wooden tables are super comfy, provide a level surface, and keep your laptop safe. The added benefit here is that it will keep good care of your posture too.
6. Handle With Care and Protect From Drops and Bumps
No matter whichever electronic equipment you are using or any gadget for that matter, it needs to be taken good care of. You cannot simply be careless especially with your laptops and phones that have such a delicate display. You are lucky if you haven’t had the gut-wrenching experience when your laptop falls down and accidentally cracks the screen.
If not this, you might get a few bumps here and there which isn’t a good sign as well. So make sure you are extra careful with it especially when you are traveling or taking it with you to different places.
7. Set Up Your Battery Saving Mode
Not sure about you, but we surely have been using Energy saving mode on our laptops as well as our phones. Whether you have a MacBook or a Windows laptop, all of these have the feature where you can set up energy saving mode and switch it on when needed.
Saving battery life span is a crucial part of any laptop working longer. Here are a few things you can choose to do.
- Set Battery Saving Mode with the option to dim the brightness as soon as the battery level hits a certain mark in order to save as much power.
- Try not to use sleep mode for your system for longer periods of time. At least try to switch off your laptop once a day so that it works better.
- Try to close multiple tabs on your system that are not in use.
- Turn off your keyboard’s backlight during the daytime or when not needed.
8. Go For Good Disk Cleaning Tools
You will find multiple tools online or even in-built on your laptops known to help you clean up your disk.
Now, it is super important to keep your system clear of files that simply are not needed.
Many times even though you have deleted a software, certain files still remain saved that are only eating up space.
Hence you can use the Disk cleanup process that automatically scans your entire system and lists down all the temporary files, duplicate files, cache, and others. You can choose to simply delete all of them to clear up space. Multiple advanced software even allows you to uninstall tools that are never used before on your system and optimize the speed of the laptop to work better.
9. Install An Antivirus And Run Periodic Virus Scans
Every laptop you purchase or come across always has a pre-installed antivirus program that protects your system from harmful files and other malware. However, they are not always very reliable. You need to get a reliable and powerful Antivirus for your laptop that will not only warn you of potential risky files but also help you get rid of them.
There are times when this malware or viruses result in slowing down the system functions. You might unknowingly download any software or files that might have certain viruses that might damage your system that is something you do not want at any stage. Hence running period scans will be helpful to keep the system safe.
10. Set Up Automatic System Update
Apart from all the options, we have mentioned above that will help your laptop last longer, this one is a very important one that you might have been ignoring for quite some time now.
Windows or macOS keeps getting new updates every now and then that only helps to improve the system and keep it running smoothly.
It is important to keep your system’s software up-to-date so that all the in-built functions and other software run at their best. There are times that your camera or any other system function might not work properly, which is why the developing team of such an operating system releases certain updates that help to fix the bugs.
Final Verdict
Here is all you need to know on different ways to make your laptop last much longer. These methods are not based on a technicality, rather any user whether you have bought a new laptop or simply owns an old one, you can always keep these in mind.
In short, keep your system clean, prevent overheating, save battery power, update your system, and much more that will overall contribute to the better health of the laptop. If you have any doubts regarding the above methods, you can let us know in the comment section below.
