As most homeowners know, every little electricity conserving tip followed can add up to huge savings over time. Computers can often be silent slayers of savings account balances, because people don’t realize the amount of power that computers use over the course of time.
The average home computer requires between 65 and 250 watts per hour to run, according to michaelbluejay.com, more when you consider the extra programs running in the background, the graphics intensive games some computers are used to play, the modems connecting to the Internet, the printer/copier/scanner/fax machine combinations, monitors, mice, keyboards, speakers, and everything else people connect to their computers.
That means one average home computer could use several hundred dollars of energy over the course of a year, if left on all the time. When the summer months come along, the reduction of a computer’s heat production lowers cooling costs for the house as well, meaning the savings keep adding up. Every little bit counts, and these electricity conserving tips are easy.
Turn Off Computers or Let Them Sleep
This first electricity conserving tip may seem obvious, but it's a little more complicated than that.
Controversy has existed in the past over whether it's more electricity conserving to turn a computer off or to just let it run, because every time a computer starts up it draws a single surge of electrical power.
However, this draw is still not sufficient to warrant leaving a computer on for any extended amount of time.
Use Electricity Conserving Features of the Operating System
Most operating systems have built in features for conserving electricity. Use them! The computer can be set to turn off the monitor and hard disks automatically after a set amount of time, and to put the computer into system standby or sleep mode as well.
Create a Video Card Profile for Graphics Cards
Use a program like RivaTuner, ATI Catalyst, or NVIDIA ForceWare to set two profiles for a video card: one for low-performance environments and one for maximum velocity. This will greatly help with electricity conserving by using the full power of a high end graphics card only when required.
Disable Devices Not in Use
Many devices are intermittently used--printers, copiers, scanners, webcams, speakers, and the list goes on. Turn these off whenever possible for electricity conserving.
This is especially relevant for laptops because they have all sorts of extra devices--speakers, Wi-fi, bluetooth, webcams, and more--and they're all easily disabled either with a switch on the laptop or by disabling them in the operating system. Note: this will also help to extend the battery life of a laptop considerably.
Lower the Monitor’s Brightness
Reducing pixel brightness on a monitor cuts its energy use significantly. This goes for any screens, too, not just computer screens, so lower the brightness of televisions and other devices as well, just not so low that the picture is hard to see.
Make Electricity Conserving Purchases
When shopping for new computer hardware, make sure purchases are electricity conserving ones. Look for Energy Star stickers on products, especially monitors and power supplies, and make sure that power supplies are 80 Plus efficiency rated, meaning that less than 20% of their converted electricity is wasted.
Don’t Use Screensavers
As much as some people may love their screensavers, the days of their usefulness ended when the days of LCD monitors began. LCD monitors don’t have the same picture burn-in problem that the older CRT monitors did. It is more electricity conserving just to turn the monitor off or to set an operating system to do so on its own.
Note: if reading this from a CRT monitor, see the next section.
Upgrade to an LCD Monitor
One of the largest money sinks in the computer world comes from failing to upgrade a CRT monitor to an LCD monitor. CRT monitors typically use over twice as much energy as a comparably-sized LCD monitor. As cheap as LCD monitors are, the cost of upgrade will pay for itself quickly.
Laptop Cooling
Use a ventilation cooling pad or heat dissipation cooler to cool your laptop instead of a USB powered one. They’re usually just as effective as their electricity sucking counterparts, and don’t make any noise either. For more information, see Laptop Cooling Review.
To find out approximately how much energy a computer (or any other electrical device) uses, go to michaelbluejay.com.
GOG101
Michael Hintz - Michael Hintz is a technically-inclined writer with a great appreciation for technology and nature alike. Having graduated in December ...
