Greening Your Computer
by Dominic Muren, Philadelphia, USA 
on 06. 3.05
For those of you who are power computer users (And for readers of TH, who isn't ?) you may not realize exactly how much power your little electronic friend is sucking down. With the average desktop power consumption cruising along at 120 watts, and laptops squeaking by with a lesser 30 watts, the global computer power load is enormous. On top of that, the shorter and shorter lifespan of computers, because of wear, and programs' insatiable hunger for more processing power, are making tons and tons of obsolete computers into waste every year. So what's a Treehugger to do? Hidetoshi Ohtomo, a programmer at the Nature Heart Laboratory, has some ideas...
In his documentation on Nature Oriented Computing, he focuses on a few simple rules that can make computers last longer, and use less power while they're doing it:
Use "lighter" programs - Software that takes up less hard drive space, and uses less system memory will keep the amount of writing and re-writing to the hard disk to a minimum, which will keep this vital computer piece in better shape. Also, programs which use less processing power to do the same work (like a simple text editor, verses Microsoft word) will use less energy in the long term.
Reuse hardware - Often, when companies upgrade their systems, perfectly good hardware can end up in the dumpster. If you consider the energy and materials involved in making a hard drive, or motherboard, then saving them from being junked can make a serious contribution.
Create "lighter" webpages - Websites are a great place to cut back on energy usage. Think about how much more processing power a flash animation uses than a simple text page. Then think about the thousands of people who could visit that site in a day. Obviously, high-powered content has its place, but this is still an interesting place to save some E.
Overall, greener computing is basically common sense. If it's harder for the computer, in memory usage, processing time, or website loading time, then it's probably using more energy. Once you see that, then you can save energy with your computer just like saving water with a sink. :: Nature Oriented Computing
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For what it's worth, my Hitachi 19" monitor pulls about 70 watts in use, my Dell 2.4 GHz desktop pulls about the same, and it is about 10-15 watts for my cable modem and router. About 150 watts total in active use. All this measured with my Kill-A-Watt.
I'm seriously considering switching to a notebook, the only real way to drop to significanly lower power. I'm leaning toward the iBook, because Apple had a good power reputation in the G4 days.
If anyone has Kill-A-Watt measurements for recent notebooks I'd be interested.
For what it's worth, the power consumption of the new G5 towers might be a bit of a scandal in the waiting ... their website quotes "Maximum current: 6.5A (low-voltage range) or 7.5A (high-voltage range)" ... convert that to watts and it's pretty scary ... more than 700 watts? Somebody please tell me I'm wrong!
If your computer is running slow or is old, consider switching to Linux. Building a whole new computer is a lot more energy intensive than using the one you already have. Linux runs well on systems as slow as Pentium 3 700Mhz, especially if you're only doing Internet, email and word processing.
If you absolutely must have a new computer, buy a Mac Mini. It doesn't ship with a monitor, keyboard or mouse, limiting the amount of waste you generate. It is a very small system (6"x6"x2") so it uses less raw materials than a conventional PC and only uses 85 watts of power. It also has a sleep feature that can put it into a low-power-consumption state and then instantly wake up, saving the energy, cost and wear-and-tear of booting.
One data point I have for the ibook is this older story about the 700 ... it seems to use a bit less than the Mini:
http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?p=27934&sid=e8f97f5d7d2d360198b4d6afe3f071aa#27934
... one reason why I'd like actual measurements on the current lineup
Hidetoshi Ohtomo makes some pretty contentious claims on this Nature Oriented Computing website.
I am a big fan of Linux, but I'm not convinced that PCs running Linux necessarily use less energy than PCs running Windows or any other operating system. Actually, I would suggest that the opposite is true; Linux users are less likely to correctly configure the power-saving features, due to the complexity sometimes involved in this task.
The page also fails to provide any compelling evidence that reducing active CPU cycles and memory accesses significantly reduces power requirements or extends component lifetimes. I won't be convinced until I see some experiments and measurements.
And while reusing old components is certainly helpful for the environment, there must be a tradeoff at some point. Older computers are less efficient at converting electrical power to computational power.
All in all, I find these tips pretty weak. Here are a few of my own:
- Prefer Energy Star compliant components
- Enable power management
- Prefer laptops to desktops
- Make liberal use of the off switch
FWIW I'm running Linux and my 70 watts measurement for a Dell 2.4 GHz is with that OS.
I like Linux, but I think there are two parts to it. If you are really running older generation hardware because the efficiency of the OS lets you ... then sure, I accept a power savings.
On the other hand, late generation hardware requires some active power management to be super-efficient. Linux probably can do that .. but it might be a little hit and miss, based on which distribution you are using, and how adept you are at installation.
FWIW, if I go with a x86 notebook, it would probably be a Pentium M with Ubuntu Linux.
I own a mac mini, and the measured draw is actually 12W during normal operation and 20W during something heavy. The Mac Mini is about the greenest computer you can own.
The 85W figure comes from a number on the power supply is rated *up to* 85W. The peak draw of the Mac Mini is nowhere near 85W from what I've seen. Just for reference, most PC power supplies are 450-500W nowadays (again peak draw... PC's range from 65W to 140W)
If you do invest in a PC, I'd recommend the AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64 processors. Their max draw is 35W, which is spectacular compared to the P4's 85-110. Just don't pair it up with some crazy high end video card, those can draw almost as much juice as the P4.
And the Linux comment is mostly true. When a Linux system is in an idle state it "halts" the processor. The side effect of this process is less power consumption and less heat.
Sorry if I got too techie in this post :)
or for those who prefer the fascist propriety domination of M$ as opposed to the fascist proprietary yet-to-be-successful domination of apple.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000577045099/
but really a laptop will always be the greenest approach considering their maniacal focus on battery efficiency
...however laptops all come with batteries which i assume contain heavy metals and they tend not to last more than a couple years... at least in my experience. the mini doesn't have the big battery. which is worse: energy consumption or the use of materials?
Thanks for the info on the Mini ... 12/20W really is excellent.
That "lighter" software thing is pretty hilarious. Most modern PCs aren't CPU-limited under normal use at all - mostly only for games.
Your load is almost entirely due to CPU. As long as the hard disk is still spinning, its use has very little variation.
You can save more power by making your desktop background black.
Perhaps Treehugger should go white-on-black instead of black-on-white.
And the Linux comment is mostly true. When a Linux system is in an idle state it "halts" the processor. The side effect of this process is less power consumption and less heat.
All modern operating systems do this. Windows 2000/XP, Mac OS, and Linux. Windows 95/98 (ie DOS) do not, however.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1798
You could underclock. Uses less power, and needs less cooling.
For those interested in lower power but unwilling to go for the laptop solution, there are a few companies making Mac Mini-like systems that are AMD/Intel based. Shuttle is probably the most well known of those, look for the "Shuttle XPC". I think there are others too. Does anyone have experience with these?
Has anyone conducted an environemntal audit of a computer ?
Not just the ongoing power requirements for operation, (which would be damn interesting in it's own right for data centre servers and the associated cooling systems) what I am interested in is the measured environmental impact of producing a desktop PC.
I do wonder how much impact that new Dell has before it's even plugged in. I'm guessing it's substantial given some fo the components and manufacturing processes and I suspect the construction of a PC is probably the single highest impact event and the operational impact is likely a trickle in comparison.
A carbon neutral web hosting company might be possible if such stats were available.
There are some low-power PCs around, for example, http://www.solarpc.com/ .
www.shaggymac.com has a nifty laptop screen protector. It is made from the finest synthetic suede (cruelty free). It will protect and clean any latop computer!
I think the only real way to save energy now days with a computer is a laptop. Do not go with the largest screen (12 - 14 max to save electricity)and do dish out the extra $140 - $200 for the model with the Pentium M (power step, and fast enough to not get obsoleted in 6 months).
While a lead battery is bad, it is also a built in UPS. Any real power user would need to add one of those to their desktop system to be equivlent.
Also the fact that a laptop is portable means you dont have to use a different computer at your destination (i.e. school computer labs, work/home). Less computer = good env.
Now it would be nice if there was a totally green laptop, but all things considered they are the best option out there. I would like to see a laptop maker design a modular laptop. One where you could switch out/upgrade the following easly (mainboard and processor, keyboard, fan, monitor, case). This would be ideal since the mainboard is really the only part that forces people to get new laptops. It wouldalso encourage companies to build longer lasting cases (mine always develop cracks).
James, your ignorance of battery technology is amazing. Just so you know, lead batteries have, to my knowledge, not been used in laptops at least in the past 20 years.
Ever since I have had a laptop (for the past six years), all of them have had Nickel-metalhydride cells. If there are heavy metals is them, they are in the electronics, not in the cells.
By the way, a six-year-old laptop is still usable, as long as you have a little patience and enough memory. I in fact wrote my B.Eng. thesis (64 pages of it) on this very laptop, that has an ancient> 333 MHz P-II and 192 MB RAM. The battery is probably original, and still gets about two hours of continuous use.
If you are not looking for a gaming machine, you can look at the VIA mini-itx and nano-itx sized computers. They have a maximum power supply of 60watts for the fanless models. You can then use a compact flash drive or thumb drive as your hard drive, there by eliminating moving components. You are still left with getting an energy efficient LCD screen. But this is a lot less energy usage than a laptop.