Understanding Power Saving

[GoodVibesOnly]

Hi,

The best way to save power is most probably shutting down the PC when not in use.

But problem is if someone feels like returning to the keyboard every 30-45 mins it becomes really troublesome.

I dont know if its true but I have read that the life of a PC (also) depends on the number of boot cycles.

So what is the best way to save power ? Frankly this the first time I am concerned the subject. Our electricity bill is increasing every month and my family is pointing fingers at me ; )

[gringer]

Our electricity bill is increasing every month and my family is pointing fingers at me ; )

Buy a power usage monitor (e.g. Kill-a-Watt), and stick it between things and the wall socket to measure power consumption.

Computers these days don't consume much power unless they're doing something like bitcoin mining or genome assemblies. If you have an older computer that is doing intensive bioinformatics all day and all night, you might get to 200-300W consumption over a day (i.e. 7.2 kWh total), which works out to less than $1.50 per day at 20c per kWh.

Three incandescent lights left on all day would consume a similar amount of energy. As would a 2.4kW space heater left on for 3 hours per day.