Energy & consumables

Posted on 3 Sep 2008 at 11:47

Up to £500 on the NAS device you never bought.

Turn on PC Power Management

By fiddling with the power settings in the Control Panel you can save plenty of energy by managing your PC's power draw. Your processor can automatically clock itself down to a lower - and less power-hungry - speed if you're running undemanding applications. You can also shut down your monitor and hard disk after several minutes of inactivity. Follow our online guide at www.pcpro.co.uk/links/168credit2.
An estimated £15 a year in lower electricity bills.

Use your PC as a room heater

PCs kick out a tremendous amount of heat, and while we're not suggesting it's more economical to heat a room with a PC than with radiators or heaters, you could turn the thermostat down in rooms where a high-powered desktop is running. Equally, a laptop placed on your lap could certainly help keep a chill at bay - although it may not do much for your sperm count, according to some scientists!
An estimated £5 to £10 off the ever-rocketing gas/electricity bills.

Do your computing at night

Although it's fallen off many people's radars, several electricity providers still run Economy 7 or Economy 10 tariffs. With these, electricity is cheaper during certain times of the day. For example, EDF Energy's Economy 7 rate sees the price per kilowatt-hour of energy drop from 9p to 4p exc VAT. There are several ways to take advantage of these tariffs. Try doing your computing in the evening or charge gadgets overnight. Steve Cassidy sets his NAS device to power down at night, but you can reverse that and set yours to power up at night, and schedule your PCs to wake up and synchronise their backups, then go back to sleep.
An estimated £20 to £30 per year.

Next: 10 things you definitely shouldn't do to save money

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