Ask the EcoGeek: How Can I Make My Computer Efficient?
by EcoGeek.org on 08.16.07
Dear EcoGeek,
My parents are always bugging me about computer usage and how the computers are sucking up energy. I want to know what I can do so that my computer doesn't waste so much energy? I totally wanna go green and save the Earth from Global Warming!
- Lukas
Hey Lukas,
You probably won't be surprised to discover that I spend quite a bit of time thinking about this very question. First, you should let your parents to know that your computer, with all of it's amazing opportunities for educational, economic and social advancement likely uses less power than the light bulbs in that share the room with it.
Most desktop computers use between 100 to 150 watts. Now, this goes way up if you've got some kind of monster high-end gaming system, but 100 watts is a pretty good energy investment for what these glorious machines give us...in my opinion anyhow.
But that doesn't mean that they're aren't steps you can take to decrease your computer's power usage.
First, it's important to realize that computers use varying amounts of power depending on what they're doing. So writing an email doesn't use as much power as playing Unreal Tournament. However, when your computer is completely idle, even if your monitor is off, it still is probably pulling about 100 watts from the wall. And when you're not using your computer that's a pretty significant amount of waste.
So always either shut down or suspend the operation of your computer when it's going to be idle for a long time. This is the most important step we can take to decrease computer use. Of course, sometimes it's hard to remember. Which is why I like to use Snap's CO2Saver application. It keeps an eye on the way I use my computer, and idles my machine when I'm not using it. It also lets you know how much CO2 you've saved by using the application's new settings. Unfortunately it only works withy XP and Vista.
It's also really important to consider not just the cost of the energy needed to power your machine, but also the energy required to create it. By most measures, more energy goes into creating a computer than will ever be used to keep it running. So one of the best ways to lower your computing carbon footprint is to try and keep your machine alive. You can do this a few ways. Don't weigh your computer down with too many unnecessary applications. Learn how to upgrade and fix your computer when things go wrong, and never complain about taking your machine in to a repair shop. You're doing the right thing for your pocket book and the environment.
And when you do finally need to upgrade (I like to try and make my computers last at least five years) look into computers that are designed specifically for efficiency. A new breed of low-energy desktops like the Zonbu and Shuttle are drawing far less than traditional PC's. Dell, Toshiba and HP are all looking into low-energy solutions. Additionally, laptops will always be far more energy efficient than desktops, because they have to be designed to run on battery power.
I hope that's a help to you and everybody else who's concerned about PC power use. But don't fret too much, you'll save way more by changing your light bulbs than your computer.
Ask the EcoGeek is a weekly column provided by EcoGeek.org and syndicated throughout the net. If you want to ask a question, or are interested in syndicating the column, email the ecogeek.
The following link is to a green computer we have developed incorporating quite a bit of power efficiency to work with a solar power supply; the SolarNetOne. Open style development, so join the mailing list or use the knowledge contained herein for your own projects:
http://gnuveau.net/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi
Use linux to lower your load. I'm using two old (1999ish) computers spliced together and run Ubuntu linux just fine. That means I don't have to turn on my gaming rig except to game. It may seem wasteful to have two computers, but both oldies weren't going to have a life otherwise. One was gathering dust in my house, and the other was being thrown out by a friend.
It is also worth to mention that the harddisk uses more power than the memory, so making sure that your computer has sufficient memory to avoid it using the harddisk for virtual memory is a way to save a few watt hours in daily use. This also means that running an anti-virus program in the background increases it's idle use quite a bit, unfortunately avoiding anti-virus is not a good idea on Windows as it is much too dangerous..
About turning on and off the machine, the boot up phase is power hungry, I don't know the numbers, but i believe that it would not be a good idea to turn it off for just 10 minutes, and when you do turn it off, it may be a good idea to hibernate the machine, rather than shut down, unless there are updates waiting to be installed.
While booting up does consume more power than when it's on and idle, it's not that much more - no more than when it's running at full tilt (although there is a widespread myth that seems to imply that computers drawn down kilowatts of power on boot up). Also it only takes a minute or two so the energy consumed is not that great.
Most importantly, all the power saving features should be engaged to shut down the monitor and hard disk after a few minutes and put the computer into sleep mode a little while after that. waking the machine up from these modes takes seconds so there's no inconvenience. Also don't use screensavers. They're not necessary on LCD screens and don't save energy!
I don't know about their embodied energy but laptops use A LOT less power than desktops (about 30%) so it's worth considering them as an energy saving option.
Finally I just removed Vista from my laptop and put XP on and my battery life immediately lept from about 3 hours to 4.5 hours! Vista is hugely resource intensive so well worth avoiding (it's also worth avoiding for many reasons besides its energy consumption).
I'd also suggest taking a look at operating systems that aren't as machine intensive as Windows. Ubuntu Linux is a very good start, and quite suitable for non-technical people. My machines power down when they're idle, and my servers power down overnight etc.
A Power Mac G5 uses about 120 watts when idle, 140 when active, but only 5 when asleep. A new Mac Mini uses about 20 watts doing nothing (idle but awake), about 25-30 when active. These are not including monitor of your choice. Measured via KillAWatt.
Some good advice here. First, depending on circumstances, you'll want to set your computer to suspend rather than hibernate. Suspend keeps the machine "alive" in the physical memory (RAM), and draws somewhere between 1 and 5 watts. Hibernate writes the contents of your RAM to disk and the machine turns off. It takes longer to come back from hibernation than standby, and it's almost as consumptive of power as a cold boot.
The tip not to use a screen saver is excellent advice. Screen savers may look pretty, but the idea is that they run when you're not at the computer - so what's the point? If anything, set the screen saver to simply blank the screen. More importantly, set your power configuration so that the monitor is turned off after 10 or 15 minutes of idle.
Finally, when it's time to upgrade your computer, keep an eye out for green components. Generally speaking, if your computer is drawing less energy, it will also be producing less heat, making it easier to cool and therefore quieter. So there is more than one benefit to going green when you build a machine. Besides case manufacturers like Shuttle, VIA also makes a line of green CPU/motherboards that draw very little power, sometimes in the 20s. There is also a new trend called MOTD, or Mobile On The Desktop. Mobile chips are also geared for low-power, and you may want to take a look at that. Finally, as processor technology improves, so does power consumption. I have an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - a modern and fast chip - and I draw about 60w during normal usage (surfing the web, email) and 90w at full tilt (burning CDs, 3D, etc.).
Good luck, and have fun.
PS - When you buy new equipment, look for RoHS-compliant hardware. That stands for Reduction of Hazardous Materials.
I'm disheartened that two points were left unmentioned:
1) completely shutting down your machine and turning off the power strip its connected to will virtually stop this useless drain of energy from the computer being idle. While not practical to shut it down every time you walk away for a few minutes, it does make sense to do this before you either leave for the weekend of go to sleep at night. It takes longer to make a pot of coffee than it does to boot up your computer.
2) The new imacs are aluminum and glass as well as being energy star rated. And (as I'm currently using one to type this message) it's a very sweet machine :-)
Another consideration is that a computer's wireless card can use a lot of energy, so consider turning wireless cards, and hubs, off when they aren't in use. That's a handy way to save battery life on a laptop as well.
good description about saving energy on computer,can the extensive knowledge about energy saving on computer be introduced more?are there other guy giving a guide or a link to some certain website about the relevant learning on computer ?
Good suggestions, but you can go a bit further, I've added a few tips the average computer user can easily do to reduce power usage: http://www.wannabehippy.com/2007/08/17/how-can-i-make-my-computer-efficient/
Make this another vote for the iMac.
Sorry Max, but Ubuntu Linux is *not* an OS for the non tech types (like me).
Vista is a mess on so many fronts, power being one, it's a poor copy of Apple's OSX (OS ten).
But I'm bias. Like Emily, I'm on a beautiful aluminum iMac. Nice and efficient. Just set the screen sleep for about 20 minutes, and full sleep at 40 and it's all good.
use a laptop!
today they're more than adequate for the average user's needs and possibly more. for 10 months, my 550Watt graphic design machine was down, so i used my HP tablet laptop for all my design work - very intensive use with vector and bitmap based projects.
65 watts total (rated on the power brick) + an extra energystar rated LCD screen vs. my 550Watt machine + 2 LCD's, plus my scanner that turns on when the system boots (not to mention the 7 hard drives spinning etc. etc.)
you can do that math here. the materials cost isn't as bad either. I suppose some of you could argue against the lithium ion batteries, but i'm not getting into that.
or, switch to an LCD screen, set your hdd's to turn off when not in use, turn your desktop background to all black, set your monitor to turn off in 5 minutes, rather than use a screen saver, switch off your printer when not in use, use headphones instead of speakers, etc. etc. i could come up with LOTS of things. and put a CFL light in your den/office/wherever you sit and surf.
how do we make computer