are there any external utilities to increase battery life?

anything like turning off the sound card, disabling part of the dual core processor... disabling hardware graphic acceleration.. anything like this?

 

well, some laptops offer a quiet mode/stealth mode that downclocks the CPU and GPU, and keeps HDD activity to a minimum. this all increases battery life. also, you can change your OS' power management profile to "battery saver" (or similar). beyond that, obviously, unplugging all peripherals will help, along with reducing monitor brightness (this can go a long way) and turning off any decorative LEDs on your laptop (if you have any).

 

What CPU is it?

If its a compatible chip you can undervolt it and gain 15-25% more battery life.

Reducing running processes and applications will also give you extra battery life

 

give "vistabatterysaver" a go if your current power management software isn't good enough for you.

If you do, just remember that when you install, it may seem to freeze just before completion. Right click on the new batterysaver icon in the taskbar and click on exit/close/whatever.

It's given me an extra ~30mins battery life over my original 1.5-2hrs.

 

AMD Fusion Gaming Utility modified to work with intel, it can switch off the maximum of your process

 

The main thing that program does is turn off Vista Aero and the sidebar. No more prettys...

One thing I did that helped a lot was set my laptop to turn off the display after a couple minutes idle.

 

Here are some tips:
1) Use defrag.
2) Kill unnecessary processes using ctrl+alt+delete
3) Don't run any scheduled tasks unless the laptop's plugged in.
4) Don't use any external devices.
5) Leave the CD/DVD drive empty.
6) Like #4, don't use external drives while on the batteries.
7) Keep the screen brightness on a low setting.
8) Mute the speakers.
9) Don't use a screensaver.
10) Use 'Power Options' in the Control Panel.
11) Don't use any fancy graphics. Turn off things like 'Aero Glass'.
12) Let it hibernate, not sleep.
13) Keep the amount of running programs to a minimum.
14) Have more RAM. It makes it so the computer doesn't have to struggle so much to contact the HD.
15) Keep the air vents clean.
16) Don't leave it where it can get hot, including in the sun.
17) Don't plug it in until the battery is almost drained.
18) Update all software and devices.
19) Use the right adapter.
20) Remove the battery if you don't need to use it for awhile.

All common sense items.

 

another free app for good power management is called aerofoil.
found over here