i have a Toshiba Satellite A100-151 laptop and the battery is PA3399U-1BAS. It just flat out sucks, even when im just surfing the net. Just want to know, can i upgrade to get a better stronger battery, or upgrade the computer to where it would run smoother? Any suggestions for where i can get any parts, batteries?
I would suggest checking your power saving settings. It may be that your are running you laptop on fully brightness which drastically decreases your battery life.Also check out these tips on how to extend your life:
How do you keep your battery going for as long as possible? Here are 7 easy ways to do so.
1. Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its work - less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.
2. Dim your screen - Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.
3. Cut down on programs running in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn't crucial when you're on battery.
4. Cut down external devices - USB devices WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.
5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory. PA3400U-1BAS, PA3400U-1BRL, PA3400U-1BRS, PA3478U-1BAS, PA3478U-1BRS, PABAS057, PABAS076.
6. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse. Even having one in the drive can be power consuming. They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used. Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.
7. Keep the battery contacts clean: Clean your battery's metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.
