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Tip
Of The Day:
Use a utility like CPUOff to shut down the computer after a backup has ended
Do you really know if your computer is switched off?
Maybe it is in a standby or hibernation mode, even if it is powered
off (according to the computer) it will still be drawing some
power from the mains. Power measurements on a range of computers
with ages varying from a few months to fours years gave a power
consumption of between 5W and 13W even when powered off. Standby
and hibernation modes gave even higher consumption. The situation
with peripherals such as monitors, scanners and printers is no
better. To see some examples look at the 2004,
2006 and 2008 Survey
Results.
The easy answer is to make sure the computer and
all peripherals are switched off at the mains. If you do need
to leave the computer powered make sure it is in the most energy
efficient mode possible compatible with the usage and make sure
peripherals not needed are powered from a separate switched socket.
An alternative is to power peripherals via a device such as an
'Intelliplug' which only powers the peripherals when the computer
is powered.. There is a myth that powering down computers when
they are not needed damages them - this is a load of rubbish.
Always make sure that the computer has been set up
to power down it's drives and turn off the monitor if left unused
for say ten minutes with a switch to standby mode after a further
period of time (say another 10 minutes). Doing this can give considerable
savings with the minor inconvenience the computer takes a few
seconds to wake up after hitting a key. Screen savers look pretty
but they contribute to energy waste, when the computer goes onto
standby set the computer to blank the monitor instead. Click here for more details.
If you have a home network or even just a broadband
connection ensure routers and/or hubs are switched off when not
in use. This will give power savings of between 5W and 20W. If
the computer has unused cards fitted (e.g. Modem) then remove them
they all contribute to wasting energy.
To enable my system to be energy efficient I use
a time switch on the router and hub plus time switches on five
of the six computers networked together. Because the computers
are fully powered down I have modified the switching circuit to
hard power on each computer when the power switches on, this gets
around the problem that software auto switch on will not always
work in this mode. Doing this enables things like backups and virus
scans to be scheduled for overnight using cheap rate electricity.
This just leaves the problem of powering down the computer as soon
a scheduled job has completed.
Finding suitable software to shut down a computer
or computers when a job had finished after an indeterminate time
proved almost impossible so I wrote several pieces of software
to do this. You are welcome to make use of them free for personal
non commercial use.
CPUOff is
designed to shutdown the host computer (and optionally one remote
computer) when the host CPU load falls below a preset threshold. LANOff
shuts down a host computer (and optionally up to four remote computers)
when the monitored network connections are lost for a preset time.
KeyOff shuts
down a host computer (and optionally one remote computer) when
there has been no keyboard or mouse activity for a preset time.
DownOff shuts
down a host computer (and optionally one remote computer) when
a download has finished. AllOff shuts down a host computer (and
optionally one remote computer) when there has been
no cpu, keyboard or mouse activity for a preset time.
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