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Why it's still vital to switch it off

Posted on 19 Sep 2007 at 17:16

It doesn't stop there, either: the new requirements demand that PCs are shipped with the display's sleep mode set to activate within 15 minutes of user inactivity, and the PC itself set to enter sleep mode after half an hour. All PCs sold through business channels must have wake-on-LAN enabled, and all users must have access to printed or electronic information that spells out the benefits of effective power management.

The Energy Star requirements are now so stringent that most modern PCs are expected to fail. "For a long time, the majority of the PCs in the market have met the previous specification. With the new specification, Energy Star has set the criteria so that approximately 25% of the market will qualify, which means it will be a more powerful tool for differentiating between PCs on energy efficiency," says Catriona McAlister, senior consultant at AEA Energy & Environment and the UK's liaison with the US-run Energy Star committee.

The UK's Energy Saving Trust is also bringing desktop PCs, laptops and computer monitors into its Energy Saving Recommended scheme. It claims its tests are slightly more stringent than Energy Star's and it will accredit only the top 20% of performers.

But while such schemes are ideal for deciding which equipment to buy, they don't account for the 75-80% of the market that doesn't meet its standards, nor the millions of PCs already installed. That's why we're urging you to make sure your idle PCs are switched off, either by tweaking your PC's power management settings (click here to find out how) or with a flick of the power switch. If all 100,000 PC Pro readers shut down their computers and turned them off at the wall overnight rather than leaving them on, it would save enough electricity to power around 12,000 homes, according to the Energy Saving Trust. And it would save you or your companies around £4m a year, too.

Powering down peripherals

Since we first launched Switch IT Off in 2005, there's been a rapid increase in the number of electrical gadgets entering homes and offices. Wireless routers, media-streaming devices, digital photo frames, MP4 players and digital radios were either niche products or unheard of even two years ago. Now, most PC Pro readers will probably have at least two of these items in their home.

What's more, many of these new devices are designed to be left on around the clock or for long periods. What use is a Slingbox, for example, if it and the wireless router aren't left running day and night so you can catch up on your television while you're out and about? How often is that media streamer under the television turned off at the plug? And what's the point of a digital photo frame that isn't merrily scrolling through your holiday snaps all day?

While these devices consume only a fraction of the power of a desktop PC, it starts to add up when they're left on all the time. The sample wireless router we tested consumes a constant 9W of power while in operation, the digital photo frame clocked in at 10W and an external NAS drive swallowed 12W when idling. Add those three everyday devices together and you're already exceeding the maximum power consumption Energy Star permits for notebook PCs. And chances are they'll be left running for longer than the laptop.

Then there's the litany of portable devices we carry that require constant charging. Laptops, MP3 players, PDAs, games consoles and UMPCs, not to mention the biggest villain: the mobile phone. Most of these devices can be fully charged in two to three hours, but many people leave them charging overnight. Mobile phone chargers left plugged in waste more than £60m and are responsible for 250,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year, according to the Energy Saving Trust.