Monitoring Power The basic source of power for the OmniBook is its rechargeable battery pack. You can use the ac adapter to recharge the battery—or to run on ac power to preserve the battery. The OmniBook conserves power by using Advanced Power Management (APM), software that controls battery charging and power drain. The OmniBook provides several safeguards so you won’t be surprised by a dead-battery condition. For example, the Power status indicator shows the remaining battery charge, and built-in warnings are displayed for low-battery conditions.
To preserve your current work session, the OmniBook automatically turns off when the battery charge gets too low—your session continues when you start recharging the battery or insert a fresh battery. Data on any of the drives is not affected by a low battery—unless the battery runs down completely while writing data to the drive, or if the battery in a PC RAM card is also low. This section shows how to • Get battery status. • Save battery power. • Recharge the battery, or run on ac power. • Respond to a low-battery warning. • Replace the battery. • Change how power is managed. To get the battery status • Check the Status Panel. If it is not visible, press FN+ESC to view it.
-or- • Move the mouse pointer onto the battery indicator at the right end of the taskbar—the percentage of battery power remaining is displayed in a pop-up window. To save battery power You can follow these suggestions for conserving battery power so the battery lasts longer: • Plug in the ac adapter, especially while using a floppy drive or other external connections—see the next topic. • Turn down the brightness of the display to the lowest comfortable level—this reduces the backlight power, which can increase the battery operating time significantly. • Set power management to an option that emphasizes saving power— see “To change how power is managed” .
• Turn off the OmniBook when you stop using it, but avoid turning it off and on frequently. 15