148Chapter 8: Managing Powerwww.gateway.comUsing alternate power sourcesTo extend battery life, use alternate power sources whenever possible.■ If traveling internationally, take electrical adapters. Save the battery fortimes when you cannot use a power adapter. If you plan on taking yourAC power adapter, also take a single-plug surge protector.■ If you will have access to an EmPower™ in-flight power receptacle or anautomobile cigarette lighter, use an airplane/automobile power adapter orpower inverter. Save the battery for times when you cannot use a poweradapter.■ To find AC power outlets in airports, look for them next to support pillars,in large areas such as boarding gates, and under banks of telephones.Changing power modesYou can use the following power modes to lengthen the life of your notebook’sbattery:■ Standby - while your notebook is in Standby, it switches to a low powerstate where devices, such as the display and drives, turn off.■ Hibernate - (also called save to disk) writes all current memory (RAM)information to the hard drive, then turns your notebook completely off.The next time you turn on your notebook, it reads the memoryinformation from the hard drive and opens the programs and documentsthat were open when you activated Hibernate mode. For more informationon using Hibernate mode, see “Activating and using Hibernate mode” onpage 154.Using power saving modesAlways save your work before using Standby mode. In Standby mode, yournotebook reduces or turns off the power to most devices except memory.However, the information in memory is not saved to the hard drive. If poweris interrupted, the information is lost.When in Hibernate mode, your computer saves all memory information to thehard drive, then turns the power completely off.
