[Freddy]

Very interesting.  It makes me happy that I have always turned my whole system including screens and speaker, printer blah blah....all off at night time.

[Bragi]

yep, interesting indeed. I've been long time looking to cut on electricity usage, mostly the simple things though, like using new low-power usage light bulbs, turning stuff off instead of keeping it running all night,....
Pulling out plugs is one step to far though. Maybe I need to get one of those remote controls that you can put on the sockets for turning tings on/off, or does that not help?

[Freddy]

My solution is simpler.  All my desktop gear plugs in to a single surge protector.  All I do is flick the switch on that and everything is off.

I use the modern lights too.

[DaveMorton]

I just did some quick checking, and it seems that my computer is costing my family approx. $1.30 per day to operate. That's just for the electricity, mind you. Including the computer, all three monitors, the sound system, router, cable modem, and all of the other peripherals, I'm pulling roughly 900 watts, at $0.06 per kilowatt hour. Now, I'm basing that on the stated max power consumption that I found on all the labels, so it's likely to be less than that (I don't have any of those fancy power consumption meters, I'm afraid), but that's still a bit higher than I had expected. Of course, since my Mother's and Brother's computers are also on 24/7, I don't feel so bad.

[GT40]

IMHO Freddy's method is the best. He not only saves the planet (loool), but one day or another, he will save his PC too. Unexpected thunderstorms are awful for computers.

[Data]

Two things that I made big savings on were my TV and graphics card.

When I turned the backlight down on my TV from maximum to minimum the power consumption went from 300 to 75 watt.

Under clocking the graphics card both GPU and RAM by 75%  in windows saves about 60 watt 40 watt, in games I clock it back up again.   

[Freddy]

Wow, that's quite a difference.

[Data]

Indeed it is, I was lucky when I got the TV it had backlight adjustment, not many do, adjusting the brightness is not the same thing. Seeing as my TV is on all day because its my monitor I reckon I saved heaps by now.

Under clocking the graphics card can be done with ATI tray tool if you have an ATI card, not really worth doing unless you have a power hungry gaming card though.


EDIT: correction the ATI card power is reduced by 40watt, sorry it was a while ago that I tested it. 

[Freddy]

I don't think my telly is back lit, but I will check it out, thanks for the tip.

I have the ATI tool, but I think my card is probably not that hungry unless I am playing games.

I think it's time to ask.....Art, so why this question ? Out of interest or are you working on some project ? Hush hush ?

[Art]

Well...I'm working on a time displacement machine that will basically breakdown and redistribute
the molecular structure in a person, and resemble the molecules at a later time and location.
I was going to call it a teleporter but I think a TV show (Star Trek) had already used that name.

I wanted to see how many people would choose to possible leave the machine on if it ever went public.
It does consume so much power each time it is turned on compared to leaving it on continuously.

OK...I made all that stuff up...I simply wanted to see if the Polling feature worked ok with this latest
configuration of the site and I was also curious with regard to computer user's preferences.

Thanks all for participating and if I get all the bugs worked out on the Time Displacement Machine,
you'll all get substantial discounts on them!!

[Data]

Put me down for one Art, with staff discount

I don't think my telly is back lit, but I will check it out, thanks for the tip.

All LCD TV’s and computer monitors have a backlight, they were all florescent bulbs at one time, like mine, but now the very latest have started using LED’s for the backlight, which take less power anyway.

Plasma TV’s don’t have a backlight and tend to take more power than an LCD, plus the screens get burned, you should not use a plasma screen for a monitor unless you want to have the “my computer” desktop icon burnt in there for ever. 

I stop now 

[DaveMorton]

Distant, foggy memories of the old B&W, with PONG emblazoned across the top of the screen, a couple of days past Christmas, suddenly spring into full vivid sight in my mind.

[Freddy]

All LCD TV’s and computer monitors have a backlight, they were all florescent bulbs at one time, like mine, but now the very latest have started using LED’s for the backlight, which take less power anyway.

Note taken 

Amazing how Pong captured the imagination though..