Although they become smaller and lighter and seem to reduce their use of material and resources, our laptops and desktop PCs hide an immense amount of technology inside ther stylish shells. This technology runs on a lot of energy, especially when using several programs at one moment. Here, we provide a short guideline for you to lower the energy consumption of your little helper by implementing only a few steps in your every-day-computer-life. Give it a try!
• First of all, turn your computer off: at night and when you are not planning to use it (or, if possible, set it to sleep mode). The next morning, don’t switch on every electronic device in your office, such as printer, scanner, power speakers, external hard drives and so on, immediately unless you really need it!
• Screen savers do not reduce your computer’s energy use! Once your screen saver kicks in, your monitor draws it full power load. All users, whether on desktops or laptops, should configure their computers to use the power-saving or energy star modes that shut down power to the monitor, hard drive and computer itself after periods of inactivity. Putting your computer in sleep mode allows it to use substantially less power, allows it to respond to some types of network activity and means you do no have to power off the computer.
• The following equipment should be turned off as well
• Monitors
• Printers
• Scanners
• Powered speakers
Please keep in mind that many electronic devices, monitors in particular, continue to use 9-16 watts of power even when turned off. To eliminate this, use a power strip that has the ability to switch off certain outlets and not others (or, alternatively, use two separate power strips) so that you can turn off any of them without turning off devices that need to remain powered, such as your computer’s CPU.
Things to be aware of when buying a computer:
- Although the initial acquisition costs of laptops may be higher, they run on significantly smaller amounts of power while in operation than desktop systems. This can mean savings of up to 80-90 percent and therefore should be included in a purchasing decision.
- Networked printers can also serve entire workgroups and may also result in energy savings over individual printers.
- LCD monitors offer up to 60 percent power savings over CRTs and produce less heat.