What is reducing electricity and enviromental waste due to computers?

Answer 1

There are a number of ways to reduce the electricity a computer uses. These include powering down the hard-drive when not in use, putting any peripherals in 'sleep mode' when inactive and using a computer's power-save functions - which switch off the display (the most power-hungry component) when there is no activity from the user for a set period of time.

You can also reduce the amount of paper used - by only printing documents, pictures etc if absolutely necessary.

Answer 2

Smaller computers with less computing power generally use less electricity and materials. Laptops typically only draw 15-60W while desktop computers draw 65-300W depending on usage. Desktops also need a monitor that may draw up to 100W at full brightness.

When you upgrade to a newer computer, consider wiping the old computer and giving it to charity or recycling it. The worst thing you can do is to put in a landfill. Computer components contain many trace toxic chemicals.

Answer 3

This question seems incomplete. Are you asking what you can do to reduce electrical power draw?

The first, and easiest, is to utilize windows' (or other OS's) power-saving features. Turning off the monitor is a great first step since most monitors make up ~20-40% of the computer's power draw. Note that having a screen saver on does NOT save power, and in fact uses more power (since the CPU has to work to render the screensaver), so turn it off and have it suspend the monitor instead.

Second is to suspend devices not in use, such as harddrives. They use a few watts and turning them off periodically will help them last longer.

Third is to use power-saving modes, such as Standby and Hibernation. Standby suspends all peripherals (internet, video, harddrives) and sticks everything in RAM until ready to resume. Resuming from standby is fairly fast.

Hibernate dumps everything from the CPU and RAM to harddrive as-is, then shuts the computer entirely off. When you wake from Hibernate, it loads the data back and picks up exactly where it left off, as if nothing happens. It is a bit faster than booting a computer cold that was turned off normally, but much slower than standby.

Finally, unplug anything you don't need, or turn it off. A monitor that's suspended but still 'on' uses a couple watts. So press the button to totally turn it off. Unplug external hard drives, printers, scanners, fax machines, thumb drives, etc. that aren't being used. Don't leave programs running you don't need (especially movies and music).

For more advanced functions, most PCs can support some kind of CPU throttling, which slows the CPU down when it's not busy. This allows it to run cooler, last longer, and use less power. My triple-core Phenom II is 2.8 GHz normally, but can clock down to 0.1 GHz when idle, dropping power usage from 95 watts to only 6!

Finally, as a more permanent solution, you can reduce the speed of your videocard, CPU, and RAM manually. Or replace them with more energy-efficient devices. For example, AMD has a new Phenom II 910e that is quad-core and uses 65 watts. It replaces my CPU, which is a triple-core and uses 95 watts. Not only is it about 35% faster, but uses 2/3 the energy as well! All for under $200! So check to see if your motherboard supports a more energy-efficient CPU.

Answer 4

Simple actions like - turning off all non-essential computers before you leave the office (or school) - would not only save energy, but save those organisations loads of money !

Answer 5

use sensor products

Answer 6

GReen computing

Answer 7

green computing

Answer 8

Green Waste