Make Your PC Use Less Energy

Some tips and tricks to lower your computer's power consumption.

Step 1 Windows Energy Saving Features

Windows has built in features to save energy

Go to the control panel, and click "Power Options." Select a power saving power plan. Then go to "Choose When to turn off the display." My personal preference is to turn off the display after five minutes idle, and sleep after ten minutes.

Comments

[BFeely]

80 Plus now has 80 Plus Bronze, Silver, and Gold ratings, which are even more efficient.

[Tpolich]

You really shouldn't do this. What you need is a dynamic scaler that changes your cpu clock based on system load. The cpu saves power when its in low c states. Running at the highest clock to get something done quick so it can get back down to low c states can save more power then always running at a lower clock.

[rimar2000]

You can also reduce the fan speed, which brings the advantage of reducing noise. Be careful not to lower it too much, especially in summer!!.

[rabbitkillrun]

When the electrical components become hot, their resistance increases (hence why people increase their core voltage when they OC), so that tiny amount saved from lowering the fan speed would most likely be taken back when the processor is under load because of this increase in resistance...

[Technochicken]

Maybe, but lowering the fan speed would probably increase the resistance of a variable resistor, which would only turn the electricity into heat. Also, only some motherboards support fan speed software like speedfan.

[mrusnak]

Using a resistor to slow the fan still will decrease power consumption -- some energy is dissipated as heat, but the fan and resistor together will still lower the total current. (Think of the resistor like putting a kink in a water hose to make less water flow through. A little bit of the water pressure's energy is wasted by converting it to sound as the water makes a hissing noise because of the blockage, but you could be blocking a lot of excess water from going through if you don't need it all at the end of the hose.)

[lemonie]

A decent heat-sink doesn't need a fan under low-load conditions. I can set my BIOS to cut out the system fan under (any temperature I like). Gigabyte board. L

[Prometheus]

Of all things, I wouldn't mess with the fans at all. A typical CPU fan will draw approximately 0.2W at it's peak...The increased heat will overrun that easily. Using a monitor's sleep feature will save that after about a second... Drives and the monitor are the biggest power-consumers, I'd suggest focusing on those instead.