completely while writing data to the drive, or if the battery in a PCMCIA RAM card is also low. This section shows how to ♦ Get detailed battery status. ♦ Save battery power. ♦ Recharge the battery or run on ac power. ♦ Respond to a low-battery warning. ♦ Replace the battery. ♦ Install a second battery. To get the battery status The Battery Status indicator on the LCD Status Panel shows the approximate charge level of the battery graphically. At any time, you can see the battery status in the Power dialog box.
Getting Battery Status Getting Battery Status 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 popup window. • To see a more detailed Battery Status indicator in the main screen of the System Configuration utility, press FN+F2 . 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 any 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 up to 1 hour or so. • 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. • If you work with an application that uses the serial port or a PCMCIA I/O card, exit the application when you’re done using it.
• If you access one or more files or programs on a hard disk or floppy disk frequently, consider copying or moving those files or programs to a flash disk or RAM card in the upper or lower card slot—at least while you’re using the files. 13