Stop Your Antivirus Draining Your Laptop Battery When You’re On The Go

Laptop battery life has improved massively over the last few years, thanks to increasingly more power-efficient CPUs and GPUs. But when you’re away from an outlet, it doesn’t hurt to take extra steps to preserve the electrons in your lithium-ion, like tweaking the settings of your antivirus software.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/05/4-tips-that-will-make-your-laptop-live-longer/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/ky9dhxgzsplghabqjeur.jpg” title=”Extend The Life Of Any Laptop With These Four Tweaks” excerpt=”If you’re shelling out hard-earned cash on a laptop, then you want to make sure you get years of service out of it. Some wear and tear (both physical and digital) is inevitable along the way, but if you take good care of your machine you can keep it running smoothly for longer.”]

As as a post over at Luculent Systems shows, having your antivirus’ real-time scanner enabled can add up to 15 per cent CPU overhead to normal activities.

Even a small increase in workload can trigger a speed bump (and voltage increase) in your laptop’s processor, running you out of power faster.

The solution? Just turn off real-time scanning while you’re unplugged.

If you’re worried about disabling your antivirus, don’t be. Chances are if you’re trying to maximise battery life, you’ll be using the web for basic browsing, or hitting up YouTube and Vimeo, where threats are non-existent — especially if you don’t download anything.

And if you end up disabling your Wi-Fi to get a few more hours at the cafe, then there’s no reason not to switch off real-time scanning.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/07/10-phone-and-laptop-problems-you-shouldnt-ignore/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/jaozwso5pc83wt3bzsbd.jpg” title=”10 Phone And Laptop Problems You Shouldn’t Ignore” excerpt=”If you own a phone or a computer there are bugs and annoyances that you just have to learn to live with. On the flip side, there are also problems that hint at something much more serious going on with your device — issues you shouldn’t learn to live with, but should address at the earliest opportunity.”]

How to minimize battery drain by antivirus software? [Luculent Systems]