Greening Your Computer Use

By Michael Bloch • March 1st, 2009 • 4122 Views

Computing has changed the world-a great example is the Internet. It is hard to imagine either not existing. While computer usage can actually lessen our environmental footprint, for example, being able to work from home or control of farm irrigation and many other tasks, the energy consumption involved with casual computing and gaming generally is massive.

There's not just the actual computer usage related electricity consumption, there's also all the millions of tons of plastic and metal used to create the billions of computers in their various forms now on this planet.

We can all do our bit in lessening our impact and the following are tips for more earth friendly computing, some of which will also save you cash!

- When not in use for extended periods, switch your computer off at the wall to avoid phantom power load consumption.

- Have your power saving/management options enabled and properly configured for periods when your computer is temporarily not in use. In Windows, this can be found in Settings/Control Panel/Power Options

- During usage, only have your screen as bright as you need it - unneccesarily bright screens really chew the juice

- If you're going to use a screen saver, use a blank (black) screen - animated screen savers just consume electricity unnecessarily.

- When buying components and peripheral items, try to choose those that come in the least amount of plastic packaging as possible.

- For your next computer, consider a notebook instead of desktop - these use under 50% the electricity of a desktop machine

- If you can afford it, buy extended warranty with your new system so there's less likelihood of you needing to junk the computer within the first few years if an expensive repair is needed.

- Do you really need a 22 inch screen? When considering your next screen purchase, balance your wants with your actual needs....

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