How to Fix Battery Drainage After Upgrading to Windows 11?

Lately, users have reported a battery drainage problem in their Lenovo, HP, Dell among other brands after they Switched to Windows 11. This is a very common problem and it is dealt with in many ways.

First let’s talk about what can cause your battery to drain rapidly, Know That, if your battery has a physical Malfunction or is very old, It might be better for you to buy a new replacement battery. This article will only focus on problems that are being caused by Windows 11. Windows 11 is built to be more battery efficient yet there are some cases that say otherwise.

• Fast Startup Enabled – Windows 11 Has a feature That most people enable to fasten the startup time, it gets the job done as it says but a major drawback is that it makes your laptop less battery efficient hence draining the battery rapidly.
• Background apps – As the name itself suggests Applications and services running in the background can Obviously cause your laptop to use more of its battery resources hence causing an inefficient battery.
• Light Theme – Light theme is first off Bad for your eyes since focusing on a bright white light for a long time is not healthy at all besides that light theme usually requires more power to end each pixel.
• Lock Screen Timeout- Laptops usually are running and consume battery even when they are not in use if you do not fix the lock screen timeout.
• Refresh Rate – Laptops are coming built-in with high-resolution high refresh rates displays, some users do not require the high refresh rates yet they have them clocked up to the maximum potential of their Display. This can cause a battery insufficiency
• Climate effect – Climate plays an important role in how your battery performs as well. If the area where you are using your laptop is Cool the battery will not drain as quickly as it would in an area that is rather hot.

Now That we are aware of the causes of the problem, let’s deal with how to fix those and make your laptop’s battery more efficient than ever.

Disable Fast Startup:

As Discussed in the initiating part of the article an enabled fast startup option means using more and more of the battery resources to extract the most out of the system but since we are focusing more on battery performance we will be disabling the fast startup feature in windows 11 (If Enabled). Follow the Steps Given Below:

1. Press Windows Key on Your Keyboard and Type in “Control Panel” OR just press windows key + R and type control.
   
2. On the Top Right section search Power options.

   

3. Untick The “Turn on Fast Startup”.

   

4. Click on Save Changes.

Disable Background Applications:

Background applications and services that you might not even need can cause your battery to be inefficient and you should disable the one’s that you think you might not need repeatedly. Follow these steps and Disable unnecessary background applications.

1. Click The windows button and open settings.                                                     
2. Click on Apps.

   

3. Now Click on Apps & Feature Option.

   

4. Now, Scroll Down and Click on the 3 dots option to Open the advanced options menu.

   

5. Click On Advanced Options.
6. If the permissions are set to always change them to ” Never”. Now this app in our case “Calculator” wont be running in the background anymore thus giving you a better battery performance.

   

6. Repeat the process for other apps that you personally feel you would not need as much.

Disable Light Theme:

Light theme, first off is not healthy at all for you. It damages the eyes and it uses more power hence making your battery inefficient. Switching to Dark Theme will help your battery give you a long-lasting experience. Learn More about how to change between light and dark themes via This article. Follow along with these very brief instructions on how to change your light mode to dark mode.

1. Open Settings.
2. Hover to personalization.
3. Click on Colors.
4. Change Mode to dark mode.
   

You will feel a dramatic change in how you view your computer screen now, everything would seem a bit more relaxed and also it is taking less battery. A win-win situation for us.

Decrease your Lockscreen timeout :

In this step, we will be choosing shorter times for screen and sleep setting to make our battery longer ultimately being more efficient. Many people look over this and don’t Realise how important this step is, I personally faced this problem it turned out that my laptop never went to sleep even when I was away for a long time. Do these things to make your screen sleep time shorter:

1. Press Window Key.
2. Search Power & Battery Options.
3. Set the screen and sleep options to 15 minutes.
4. Now every time your laptop or PC is idle for more than 15 minutes, the laptop will automatically go to sleep mode and make your battery more efficient.
   

Decrease your Refresh Rate:

Refresh rate is basically the rate at which your monitor refreshes, It is best to have a higher refresh rate monitor if you are a gamer, if you are using your laptop just to do your office work you won’t be needing anything above 60Hz. Nowadays, the laptop’s come equipped with displays that are 144Hz or 60Hz. If you are certain that your usage does not require higher refresh rates we can clock it down to 60Hz. This will help you utilize less of your battery resources and help you overall get a long-lasting experience.To clock down your refresh rate follow these rather easy steps.

1. Right-click anywhere on the desktop to open display settings.

   

2. Click on Display Settings.
3. Scroll down till you see “Advanced display settings”.

   

4. Check what is the refresh rate of your display currently, if it is above 60Hz Clock it down to 60Hz since our key focus is to leach out as much longer-lasting experience out of battery as we can.

   

5. After Clocking down the Refresh Rate to 60Hz. you will see an exponential change in battery timing’s since now your monitor is not consuming as much battery as it was consuming before.

Batteries perform way better in cold climates than in hot climates, make sure to sit in an open space where there is good airflow for your laptop, or maybe consider buying cooling pads that help you in two ways, one by keeping your laptop cool second by making your batteries drain slowly.

If none of these are working for you it is recommended to switch back to Windows 10 as continuous charge cycles can deplete your battery health really fast. That is going to make your overall battery and laptop less efficient. If switching back to Windows 10 doesn’t really fix your issue then it’s possible that your battery health is low it’s recommended to get your battery replaced or use your laptop when it’s plugged it.