Tips on how to save Electricity - Computers : Desktops

1. Get an LCD Display
Typically, almost half of the Power Consumption of computers are consumed by the Monitor. If you are using a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) type monitor, your display may be actually using more Electrical Energy than the PC. Even the newest Energy Efficient CRT monitors still consume 90 – 100 Watts of Electrical Energy when it is turned on. Compare that to an LCD display, which uses only around 25 – 40 Watts.

2. Use a Power Efficient PSU
Most desktop computers today run with a 300 – 350 Watts Power Supply Unit or PSU. The newer ones offer 500 Watts, and even 1000 Watts! Does this mean that the computer is consuming electrical Energy equal to the Wattage of the PSU? The answer, wonderfully, is no.

The PSU Wattage Rating which you see in the PSU is what can be called as “Maximum Effective Wattage”. This means that the wattage indicated on the PSU rating is the maximum power the PSU can supply to the computer system. If your computer has a 350 Watts CPU, it doesn’t mean the computer consumes 350 Watts. It just means that the PSU can deliver a maximum of 350 Watts into your system. The actual Energy Consumption that the computer uses depends on the devices that actually consume electrical energy such as the processor and motherboard. This is the reason why some branded PC’s such as HP and Dell still use 250 Watts Energy Efficient PSU’s to run their latest PC’s, while some computer systems use 500 Watt PSU’s to run the latest microprocessors.

Some PSU’s do operate at a lower Power Efficiency. Meaning that it consumes a slightly larger amount of electrical energy than what the PC components really need. The most Energy Efficient PSU’s can often be seen in Barebone Systems such as the Shuttle XPC’s. The high price of these Barebones isn’t only because they look good, but they use Energy Efficient PSU’s as well. Brand Name PSU’s such as ANTEC and HEC costs more, but they do tend to be more power efficient and is also more stable.

2. Use Built-in components of the Motherboard
As I mentioned in the PSU explanation, the energy consumption of your PC largely depends on your system’s configuration. Basically, every component on your PC (motherboard, processor, video card, hard drive, etc) draws out power from the PSU (Power Supply Unit). So, the more components you have, the more electrical energy is consumed by your PC.

Most modern Motherboards today have built-in Video, Sound, and LAN. The Sound and LAN components of the motherboard are almost always sufficient enough for most users. For the Video Display though, most still prefer plugging in a separate Video card for the display. This is specially true for those who are into Gaming. But if you are not into PC Gaming, you might want to consider using the built-in Graphics Processor of the motherboard instead of using a separate video card. Typical Video Cards consume about 20 – 40 Watts. High End Video cards used for Gaming and Graphic Intensive Applications can consume as much as 80 Watts! A motherboard’s built-in graphic processor works by using a specified amount of the system’s memory, so you do need to have a large amount of Memory in your PC to use the built-in Video. But since most modern PC’s can accommodate larger amounts of RAM, memory cards are getting cheaper, and Built-in Graphics Processors are getting better, using the Built-in Video in you Motherboard not only saves you money on the account that you don’t have to buy a separate video card, and you shave off a couple of watts on the electrical consumption of your PC.

3. Use Enclosures or External Storage
Each Hard Drive you connect to the Motherboard uses around 25 – 30 Watts. Each Optical Drive you connect consumes Watts. A good way to save on electrical consumption in your PC is to use just 1 Hard drive and 1 Optical Drive. If you need an Additional Hard Drive or Optical Drive, you might want to use a Hard Disk/Optical Drive Enclosure that connects to your USB or FireWire port. Move you backups or rarely used files on the Enclosure, and just keep 1 Hard drive in the system. The reason for this is simple – your backup drive is consuming 25 Watts, even if you don’t use it. By removing the backup drive to the Enclosure you save 25 Watts. You can connect the Enclosure whenever you want to access your backup files.

If you are using multiple Hard Drives to store Media Files and you want the convenience of being able to play those files whenever you want to, consider upgrading to a larger capacity hard drive. This idea is also good for those who use Multi-Boot systems. Just Partition the Hard Drive to as be able to install multiple operating systems.

For Optical Drives, I recommend connecting just the DVD-RW to the system and placing your DVD-ROM/CD-RW/CD-ROM Drives in an enclosure.

4. Get a bigger stick
Most Memory or RAM modules consume 10 – 12 Watts. The newest DDR2 Type RAM modules are more Energy Efficient, consuming only 7.5 Watts, but some do need to work in pairs. So it is more Energy Efficient to buy bigger capacity memory sticks and use less memory slot in your motherboard. A 1GB DDR1 Memory would save you 30 Watts compared to using 4 256MB sticks.

5. Casing Fans and Lights
Some of today’s PC casings have colorful lights that automatically turn on when the PC is booted up. These lights may make your PC look fancy and they do tend to use only 3 watts of energy, but sometimes, they are just a waste of Electrical Energy. Like, if you use your PC during the day, or where there is bright light in the room that those CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light) lights are hardly noticeable, it is better to turn those lights off. It may just be 3 watts, but if you use your PC for long periods of time, those 3 watts pile up on your electricity meter. Some PC casings have switches for their CCFL lights, which is convenient so that you can turn the lights on when it is dark. Those that doesn’t have switches though, is connected directly to the Power supply, or in the Motherboard. It is better to unplug it and save 3 Watts.

Casing fans are often added to the casing to provide better airflow and cool the interior of the PC. Each of these fans consumes 2 Watts. If you’re room has good ventilation, or airconditioned, it’s better to just unplug those fans.