Time to turn those PCs off… August 22, 2007
Posted by Wilz in Environment, Technology.trackback
I’m one of the offenders here. Bleh. From Ars Technica’s article “Put your PC to sleep, get a free pizza“:
If we take the number of college students in the US (18 million), multiply it by the 61 percent of students who have their own desktop computer, subtract the 10 percent who already use power management, and multiply that by the average KWh per year saved by power management (236.5), we get a potential power savings of 2.3 billion KWh/year. Now, take this number and multiply by the average cost of electricity ($0.0885/KWh) and you get, according to the CSCI, a cost savings of $206 million each year.
The cost saving values are probably quite different in Malaysia. Regardless, the energy consumption per person is probably quite similar, considering that most computers around the world are built using the same architecture, and are mostly Loltel and Lolsoft powered.
Not to mention that this morning, friend T just informed me that some high powered graphics cards draw the same amount of power when idling as sometimes entire PCs. Wish he gave me a link though. (EDIT: In case some don’t read comments, the link was given in a comment.)
I’ve heard a lot of arguments to support leaving the PC on and idling non-stop – to avoid the power spikes when you power on and off, to avoid the expansion and shrinking of your PC components due to constantly changing heat levels, to keep your PC burned in etc etc.
However, I have to conclude two things – the only two real reasons why I keep mine on are:
- Ongoing operations – downloads (most of all), defrag, sometimes virus scan
- Impatience – What! I have to wait for it to power up when I want to use it?! (I blame Lolsoft for this one.)
Can I still leave it on when going for lunch/dinner? Pretty please? Sigh. Gotta change own habits I guess. Now where’s that “shutdown PC when done” option on that downloader… /rummage
Wilz
Siew
Will
zhiyuan
Earthwatcher 
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/21/energy-efficient_computing_options/page5.html
Great link Tim. Integrated graphics are definitely on my possibility list now.
“Now where’s that “shutdown PC when done” option on that downloader… /rummage”
Imagine if every P2P downloader uses that option. We might save billions in money and trees! /ignores that P2P will die off
Go get yourself a low power pc/second hand notebook for those downloading chores. Power down main rig when not needed.
i read somewhere that a pc still draws power from the socket even when it’s off and the socket is switched to ON.
Check out this link. It has some interesting power usage measures. And you’re right Howzan – even when ‘off’ most electronic appliances appears to draw power.
http://www.technogab.com/?p=49
I’m seriously considering that idea Ross. But unlike in the States, where power costs are high and hardware is relatively cheap, purchasing a file server hardly ‘makes up for’ the cost savings, which means that a real effort to consume less power in Malaysia = net loss for most of us. But this finally gives me a good reason to have both a laptop and a desktop.