Will disabling connections increase battery life?

[simms]

I believe that disabling WiFi when not in use can lengthen battery life. Will the simple Fn+F5 and "Turn off" work in disabling it, or should I always do it in system devices?

Secondly, what about local area connections with an RJ45 port? Will enabling the connection when not in use decrease battery life?

I tried searching but came up with nothing. Searched "disable connection battery life".

[DIGITALgimpus]

yes, that should do it.

[Aroc]

Assuming you already have a power friendly processor, like the Pentium M, then you should tackle LED screan brightness first then disable wireless LAN, if you aren't using it. Next see if you're running out of system RAM, causing the system to swap to disk often. If so, buy more RAM. In that case you will save battery life (it takes less power to run extra RAM chips than it does to constantly access the hard disk).

I'd turn the screen brightness down to the minimum tolerable levels for you. Running the backlight of that TFT is a major drain on the bettery.

I'm sure the wired ethernet port draws some power, but that's likely in the realm of diminishing returns. I just don't think it will make much difference. not anything like the screen does.

[simms]

I use lowest LCD when required, and I already have 1GB RAM.

To summarize, the WiFi will use a noticiable amount of power, while the wired LAN will not.

Now the question is, will simply "turning off" the Wifi using Fn+F5 do the trick? Even when I "disable" it via Access Connections the not connected symbol still appears in my system tray.

[Aroc]

You need to actually turn the radio off.

[Jmmmmm]

Now the question is, will simply "turning off" the Wifi using Fn+F5 do the trick? Even when I "disable" it via Access Connections the not connected symbol still appears in my system tray.

Yes, as digitalgimpus said, that turns off the wireless card. That is all you need to do.