How To Reduce The Energy Consumption Of Your PC

Everyone is trying to save money these days and there are plenty of ways to conserve energy and reduce our electric bills. Computers consume quite a bit of electricity, especially when we aren't using them. With high speed multi-core processors, its no wonder that you could power several light bulbs with the same amount of energy your computer uses. Computers that are left turned on all day and night when they're not in use can steadily run your electric bill higher by the end of the month.

All Microsoft Operating Systems from Windows XP through Windows 7 include several settings for the user to adjust in order to conserve power. They can be accessed by double-clicking the Power Options icon in the Control Panel. You will be presented with the options of Maximum Performance, Balanced and finally Power saver. All of these options are essentially profiles that are already setup with different timers for events such as dimming the display, turning the display off and putting the computer into sleep mode. They also affect CPU speed to an extent, however most users won't notice this. Power saver is perfect for people who simply need to browse the internet, use a word processor or for emails. Balanced is good for people who do more demanding tasks such as watching videos and playing games.

The idea is to have your computer reduce its energy consumption by working when you are and putting the display and pc into sleep mode when you aren't. This is convenient as you don't have to remember to put your computer to sleep yourself and its ready to work again as soon as you are since you don't have to go through a lengthy boot process. These settings can also greatly extend laptop runtime when operating from a battery. In such a case, the Balanced and Power saver settings can also adjust your laptop screen's backlight intensity to further reduce energy consumption.

One easy way to save even more energy beyond the simple Power Options in Windows is to install and configure Granola. Granola is a software application that, once installed and setup, adjusts your CPUs speed on the fly, ensuring that it is operating at an appropriate frequency, or speed, for whatever task is at hand. Its developers compare it to a dimmer switch for your PC. This makes sense, as you want a bright light when you're performing important work as compared to a dim light when you're just relaxing. The software is available to individuals at no charge. After the earthquake in Japan in 2011, Granola's website experienced a surge in downloads from Japan as users were looking for ways to make their laptop batteries last longer between charges.

Personally, I've installed Granola on all of my PCs and laptops because it works. On my laptops, it allows me to run from a battery significantly longer than with just using the Power saver setting. Of course, this also translates to less heat which can be a blessing for my lap. Of course, its great to not have to hear a loud fan spinning up while I'm in the middle of typing a document.