Green computing is all the rage now, I thought I would share some useful tips on saving electricity with PC’s.  I manage around 100 PC’s where I work and I set each new PC I roll out to utilize XP’s power management.  Since our company still utilizes XP Professional the following examples are using Windows XP.  The process if fairly similar in Vista as well.

In XP go to Start Control Panel Power Options  This is where you can make the necessary changes.

I usually will set these options in accordance with how the end user works with their PC.  For people who use the PC only in the morning and then later in the day … I set the system to go into standby after an hour.  If they still have an old CRT power hog I set the monitor to turn off after 20 minutes of inactivity.  Unless the person is a power user there is no reason for their computer to be on full power all day.

There are also advanced options to set such as “Prompt for password when resume from standby”.  This is a security measure as to not allow a passerby to hop on your computer (profile) without your password.

This is just the start of several tips I will be writing about in how IT can save power and money.  If you have additional tips or creative ideas please make sure and contact me.

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