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how can i save energy with my mac and pc, i have have them both constantly running all day and i know for a fact it shows up on my electric bill which i have to pay a little bit over then what im used to, what can i do to lower this ? Edited: corrected spelling of energy in title to facilitate searching |
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Have them drop into S3 sleep mode after a set period of inactivity. S3 mode suspends the computer to RAM. Everything is completely off, except for a trickle-charge keeping the data in RAM alive (this only requires about 5w of power). Your PC's should be able to resume from S3 mode within about 5 seconds (far faster than a cold boot), so that's another advantage right there. |
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Turn them off when not using them. Use programs like rivatuner and add extra performance profiles for your videocard. and have it go into a overclocked state when gaming and when not gaming, have it go into really underclocked state (using a very low clock speed wont cause problems. for non gaming tasks and wont effect 1080P playback as the hardware acceleration may use 5% GPU usage at most even when underclocked) If your CPU supports scaling, you can manually pick performance levels so when not gaming or doing anything that requires a lot of performance, you can have the CPU downclocked If you have extra hard drives that you only use for storage/ backups (and you don't use them very often, you can turn the system off and disconnect the power to the extra drive (it will save 5-6 watts of power and the drive will last longer because you wont be running it as often) Clean the inside of your computer. Dust buildup causes the system to run hotter which in tern gives the system a shorter life and also use more power as the fans have to run faster to cool the system and parts such as the power supply become less efficient at higher temperatures. |
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Chris has an answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idy0Eu9u8jA&feature=player_embedded I however say that you just turn off you computer when not using it and that's all. Simple. |
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For the Mac: Apple being a co-founding member of Energy Star takes a big stand on the environment and energy. They've prided themsleves a few times at how little energy some of their Macs use, such as the iMac using less power than a 60watt light bulb. the best thing to do is dim the displays, do NOT use screensavers (instead use the display sleep setting in the Energy Saver section of the System Preferences). When possible, use the sleep mode on Macs, Macs have both a sleep and deep sleep mode that is managed automaticly and uses very little power only to keep small things like RAM going and a small event loop checking for a sign to wake up... when it falls unto deep sleep, it'll copy the data from RAM to the HDD and shut off that component as much as possible using even less power. for more info: Apple a co-founding member? Is that true? That's hilarious. Energy star hasn't had the most reputable history on the planet ;) I wouldn't want to associate with them. Yes they are, I could also throw in that they're EPEAT Gold Standard as well if that means anything to you, and tend to be compliant with draft standards far before others. If you really wanted to get into detail, you could click on the link posted and go to the report section which lists the manufacturing and ownership impact on the environment of all Mac models... even including the list of materials used on the box it's shipped in along with the weight and size. The Macbook Pro 15" for example using about 9watts when on/idle including display and around 1.6watts when in sleep mode. it also shows that in it's total life from production to usage, it'll consume a total of 630 kg Co2 emissions, 23% of that being the user, 6% for transporting, 66% for production, 1% when it's recycled. Isn't it interesting how one can twist facts to make themselves look green and friendly, while outsourcing components from the same companies as other major vendors? Their "user" stats seem strange to me. On one hand they're saying their laptops use less than "a 60 watt incandescent bulb", on the other hand they blame 22% of CO2 emissions on user use. Hmmm, I wonder where China imports their coal from... There are a lot of things they have omitted there. "Calculations include emissions from production, transport, use, and recycling of Apple products" ... About the only thing that's an "Apple product" is the case and the OS. I don't mean to sound like a smart-arse. If you read the document a couple of times you'll likely think of something that I couldn't. My point is that people (and Apple) should stand up and take responsibility for being consumers, and this whole "Apple products" is a cop-out. It isn't BPs fault that the Gulf of Mexico has been destroyed. It's everyone's fault. I don't know what seems strange about it? 22% or 138Kg of Co2 emissions being user base (as in when charging the laptop) which has 1000 estimated charge cycles, a single 60watt incandescent light bulb creates around 310-350 kg of Co2 emissions during it's life. I'm not sure how or if Apple calculates the production of all components used, I do know it does include their direct manufacturing contractors like Foxconn. They may have the info listed somewhere in small text, and Apple does have a lot of contact numbers if you really cared. In 3 years of that laptop you would go through about 15 1000 hour bulbs creating 4875Kg of Co2, of course there are 5000 and even some claiming 20,000 hour bulbs... and I'd hope most people wouldn't be using incandescent anymore. Thanks for replying to my question your response is very helpful to us! |
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Whenever you're not using a computer for a long period of time, turn it off. Come on, you'll save the environment that way too! My rules:
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For Windows and Linux Systems try Granola (http://grano.la/). It will will reduce the amount of energy used even while you are using the computer. Also, it tells you how much you are saving. Furthermore, you can run Granola on multiple computers and get a Granola account to see the combined energy savings of all your computers. |
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We don't pro-actively attempt to conserve electricity with our computers or any other appliance in our home. Well, we do not use our electric oven much during the summer because I tend to grill almost every night. But, all our computers stay on 24/7/365. We both work from home and we can get conference calls and such at any moment. The last thing we need is for Windows Update to kick in while we're going through a power point with a client over a slow VPN. On the other hand, I use Linux on my own computer so I have no need to turn it off except for safety reasons when we go out of town. And, our media/file server is used through out the house and even on our blackberries. If one of us turn it off and the other doesn't notice they have to boot in to a screen with a whole bunch of broken shortcuts and missing files. |
