This link has been bookmarked by 111 people . It was first bookmarked on 23 May 2006, by Shearlock Wen.
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Tom GrissomHow much it costs to run your computer
To calculate your costs use this formula:
Watts x Hours Used
x Cost per kilowatt-hour = Total Cost
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As long as your computer goes into sleep/standby when you're not using it, your computer doesn't use squat for electricity, compared to the rest of your household.
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When your computer sleeps (aka "standby", "hibernate") the computer uses 0-6 watts.
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On screen saver
60-250 watts -
Sleep / standby
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15-45 watts -
80 watts
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19" LCD
17-31 watts
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A typical desktop computer uses about 65 to 250 watts.
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As long as your computer goes into sleep/standby when you're not using it, your computer doesn't use squat for electricity, compared to the rest of your household.
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For most people, their computers' energy use is not a significant portion of their total use, even if they use their computers a lot
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More Energy
Less Energy
Ready to be used
Sleep / Standby
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Laptop
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Slower processor
Older processor (Pentium, G3/G4/G5)
Newer processor (Core Duo)
PC
Mac
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(all drives spinning, processor-intensive task)Light use
(e.g., email, word processing)On the Internet
Offline
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Setting your computer to auto-sleep is the best and easiest way to save on computer energy use!
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Some people think it's a bad idea to replace desktops with laptops even though they use less energy, because they're more likely to require repair, those repairs are more expensive than desktop repairs, many users thus choose to replace their broken laptop rather than getting it fixed, and laptops require disposal of chemically-laden batteries when they wear out. While these things are true, I think the average person (and the environment) will still come out ahead over all by using a laptop over a desktop, because only a fraction of laptops will actually break and get replaced. If every laptop failed like this during its life (or even if most of them did), we could easily say that it would be better to stick with desktops. But since only a fraction of laptops fail, I still think there's a net savings by using laptops.
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- Set the Power settings on your computer to automatically go into Sleep/Standby mode after 15 minutes or so of inactivity. If you do nothing else, do this.
- If you use a desktop, use an LCD monitor. They use lots less energy than CRT's.
- Turn your computer off when you're done for the day.
- Use a laptop computer. They use lots less energy than desktops.
- Use a Mac. Macs use way less energy than most Dells.
- Use a power strip so you can easily turn off all your computer accessories at once. BITS makes a special power strip that goes one step further, automatically cutting power to peripherals when you turn your computer off.
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Robert CalvachiSaving electricity, good paper on PC energy use.
How much electricity do computers use? -
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Bambi EdwardsGreat Article about the cost of using a computer and energy efficiency
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How much it costs to run your computer
To calculate your costs use this formula:
Watts x Hours Used x Cost per kilowatt-hour = Total Cost
1000 -
Laptop computers use about 15-45 watts, far less than desktops.
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. If you turn the monitor off at the switch it will use 0 to 10 watts. (Some electronics equipment draws a small amount of energy even when it's switched off.)
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- How Stuff Works: Whether to turn off?
- Mean Time Between Failure vs. Mean Cycles Between Failure
- MonitorWorld: How can I maximize the life of my monitor?
I work for a company that has over 100 computers in its offices and production areas. One of our MIS people tells me that is is not a good idea to turn our computers off during the night and on weekends because it puts extra stress on them to turn them off and on, that you are shortening the life of a computer and monitor by repeatedly starting it. Do you know if this is actually true? -- Janet Smith, April 2003
Your MIS people are wrong. You're not going to wear out your computers prematurely by cycling them off/on overnight and on weekends. This is just an urban myth. Modern computers are simply not that fragile. (By the way, I did technical support at Apple Computer for five years, so I have a background in troubleshooting computer hardware.)
The useful life of a computer these days is only a few years anyway. The computer will become obsolete long before you wear it out, no matter how often you cycle it.
Something else to consider is that all devices eventually wear out after running for a long period of time. Keeping your computer on constantly means it's running three times longer than normal. This extra running time is at least as likely to wear out your computer as turning it off at night. For the monitor, it'll definitely wear out quicker by keeping it on rather than turning it off.
Even if turning a computer off once a day shortened its overall life by a few days, it wouldn't pay to keep it on all the time. Your hundred computers are costing your company several hundred to several thousand dollars a year in energy costs if they're not being turned off at night.
If a computer is used from 8:00 to 5:00 on weekdays, then it's not being used for 16 hours a day during the work week, and 48 hours for the weekend. That's a total of 128 hours a week, or 6656 hours a year. At an estimated 25 watts/hr. in sleep mode, that's 6656 x 25 = 166,400 watt-hours per year, or 166.4 kilowatt-hours per year. At $0.10 a kilowatt-hour, that's $16.64/year.
That's for just one computer. For a hundred computers it would be $1664/year. If the computers aren't in sleep mode, then at 150 watts/hr. it's more like $9,984/year.
And then there are the hidden costs. Computers generate heat, and your company is paying a pretty penny for air conditioning to remove all the heat generated by computers that should be off when they're not being used. And if the AC doesn't run overnight and on weekends, running the computers in a hot environment will do more to shorten their lives than turning them off once a day.
Bottom line: Turn your computers off at night, and don't worry about it.
Here are some articles with more detailed information on this topic:
Postscript: An MIS person told me they want the computers kept on overnight at his facility so they can install software updates over the network. Updates installed during the day would slow down the computer while someone is trying to use it. But companies that do this pay a big penalty in electrical and cooling costs. For companies that must do this, there's probably software that puts the computer into standby (sleep) mode after installing updates, or if there are no updates to install that night.
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Adi CarloTo find the figure for your particular computer you can contact the manufacturer
computer electricity energy consumption wattage power bills finance
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19 Feb 07
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24 Nov 06
Afshin Mehdizadehلیست تقریبا کاملی داره حتما ببینید پول قبض برق چقدرش مال سیستممونه
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