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| energy saving tips for your comp? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 22 2008, 07:11 PM (937 Views) | |
| The sentinel-ZNS | Sep 22 2008, 07:11 PM Post #1 |
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Space octopus
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ive heard people say: "lowering the contrast of your comp screen saves energy" "using your system's own screensaver and not the kind you get from another website saves resources" "using less FF add ons decreases wasted resources" which of these are true or false? iam dedicated in trying to save as much resources as i possibly can. becasue of my atrocious and insatiable craving to be online 14 hours per day :w00t: |
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| Ben | Sep 22 2008, 07:25 PM Post #2 |
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Quantum-locked when observed.
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Your title is "energy saving tips," but your post seems to be more concentrated on saving computer resources. These goals are not necessarily analogous, although they certainly overlap. To save energy consumption, turn your computer off. Really. Unless you have some sort of reason for leaving it on when you aren't home or you aren't at work (like a scheduled process), turning off your computer will seriously save power. If you have a large number of scheduled tasks, consider if you can run those only once a day or even once a week, then set your computer to automatically power on, run those tasks, then power itself off. If you must leave your computer on, but you won't be using it, then turn off the screen. Don't use a screensaver, actually power off the hardware. To save resource consumption, get a good maintenance program like CCleaner and look at what programs you have set to run at start-up. Many popular programs like to install startup applications that will run in the background all day. These applications make the program launch faster, so if you use it all the time, it might be useful. But things like the Adobe Speed Launcher more often than not just slow down your computer's start up and munch at resources.
It's true that a lower brightness means less energy's expended. However, unless you're trying to conserve laptop battery power, you won't notice. I run my laptop on full brightness when it's on AC, and then I have it at about half when it's on battery power.
I don't use a screensaver at all. The screen will turn off after a certain amount of idleness on my part; I don't see the need to waste power or resources on a cute animation or even just a still image.
That depends on which add-ons you use. Some add-ons are resource-heavy, others not. That's why the newest version of Firebug has its more advanced tools disabled by default for all pages until you explicitly enable them--these were slowing down page loads. An add-on like ChatZilla, which is a full IRC chat in Firefox, or FireFTP, an FTP client, will use more resources than something like ColourZilla, which you invoke only when you need it. If you think Firefox is performing too slowly, re-evaluate your add-ons every couple of months. Look at the list and ask yourself if you really need the add-on. If the answer is no, then remove it or disable it. It also depends on your computer--a more powerful computer will naturally be able to run Firefox and its add-ons faster than a slower computer of the previous generation. |
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| The sentinel-ZNS | Sep 22 2008, 07:44 PM Post #3 |
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Space octopus
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wow thx ben bro! |
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| FinalKiller0 | Sep 22 2008, 08:48 PM Post #4 |
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OVER 1,000!!
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Ben, can you tell me how to schedule a computer, or give me a link to a site that helps? I want to schedule my computer, but I don't know how. (I'm using XP). |
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| Christian | Sep 24 2008, 11:44 AM Post #5 |
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Always a Step Ahead
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Actually, I read a while ago that a study found turning off a computer and putting it in sleep/hibernate mode is relatively the same thing when it comes to saving "power". Even Microsoft said something similar. Then they go on to say...
Article, find "If I'm not planning to use my computer for awhile, should I shut it down or put it to sleep?". |
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| Jia | Sep 24 2008, 02:07 PM Post #6 |
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我爱我的国家
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Don't leave it on stand-by overnight. Also turn it off at the powerpoint. I can't sleep with the computer screen light on anyway, any light on in the room and I struggle to sleep. |
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| Ben | Sep 24 2008, 07:12 PM Post #7 |
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Quantum-locked when observed.
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I never said shutting down was better than standby/hibernation. I said that shutting down was better than leaving your computer running all the time, in terms of power consumption.
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| The sentinel-ZNS | Sep 24 2008, 07:29 PM Post #8 |
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Space octopus
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i always tuck my comp in bed to sleep..thereby saving resource..rarely would i hibernate or shut down. |
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3:17 PM Jul 11
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I said that shutting down was better than leaving your computer running all the time, in terms of power consumption.
3:17 PM Jul 11