Computer Power Saving

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Your computer wastes more power than you think...

A typical desktop PC uses about 800KwH of electricity each year with up to 97% of that power being unneccessary wastage!

For example did you know that your computer uses almost as much power when it's in standby mode with a screen saver active as it does when you're using it?

If you turn your computer (and printer, scanner etc) off when it's not being used, and set up power management features for while it's switched on, you can cut energy consumption dramatically. If you use your computer 6 hours a day, you could save 75 percent or more.

The easy solution

Put your computer to sleep while you're not using it and it will only use 1-6watts. Setting your computer go into standby mode is one of the easiest ways to save power in your home.

In Windows XP go to Start > Control Panel > Power Options. On a Mac go to System Preferences > Energy Saver. Set your monitor to switch off after 5-10 minutes of inactivity - it will turn on again as soon as you move your mouse. Set your hard drives to turn off after about an hour or leave this set to 'never' and instead set the system to standby after an hour.

In standby, you need to press the power button to switch your computer back on, but this works quicker than a full startup and can save a lot of power.

You can also set your computer to Hibernation which actually turns the computer off after saving all of your information to the hard drive. The two benefits of doing this is that a) it can be set to happen automatically, so you don't need to remember to shutdown your computer and b) when you restart your computer all of your programs and settings will be restored to the way they were before hibernating.

Benefits

Power management can save $25 to $75 Per Desktop PC Annually
With a sleep mode, the average computer uses 200 kWh less power per year.
My computer is a Dell Dimension E510 (Pentium 4) and uses up to 165w when in use. In sleep mode it only uses 1.3w and if I turn it off it uses 0.7w

More ways to save power with your computer

If you do nothing else switch the monitor off when you are not sitting in front of the computer - they use up to 100w of power. Don't bother with screensavers, they don't actually save any power and your monitor won't need saving anyway if it's switched off!
Shutdown and switch off your computer at night. I was surprised to learn that apart from saving power it's actually more damaging to leave computers on indefinitely than to turn them off overnight (a recent university study has confirmed this).
Switch to a laptop. A typical desktop computer uses about 65 to 250 watts. Laptop computers use about 15-45 watts, far less than desktops (up to 90% less power).
Change your old CRT monitor to an LCD monitor. They use almost 70% less power than CRT's.
Use a Mac. Macs use way less energy than most desktops.
Use a powerstrip or powerboard. You can even get one that automatically switches off everything plugged into it when the computer itself is shutdown.

Want more info?

Here's some pretty technical info on how you can really squeeze the power use on your computer: http://saf.bio.caltech.edu/saving_power.html

Find out how much power your computer uses http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.html

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