Power Consumption – Laptops are better than Desktop computers

Posted by BA on Mar 6, 2010 in Uncategorized | 3 comments

If you have been a desktop computer user and are planning to upgrade your machine in near future, please do consider the fact that the power consumption of a Laptop Computer is way less than that of a desktop computer. So we recommend you buy a laptop instead of a desktop, not only to give you more mobility, convenience of use but also to save power and support green computing. Lets look at the topic in a bit more detail.

Whey laptops are inherently power efficient? 
From the initial days of laptops or notebook computers, they have been including chargeable batteries that allow the computers to run without power supply for some time. To increase the operating time on a given battery, the computer components have especially been designed for laptops to consume low power.

How power efficient are laptops compared to the desktop versions?
Laptop computers are as powerful as their desktop versions in capability, but they normally save more than 85% power when computing at their maximum capacities. This graph shows a typical comparison:

For example, the laptop I’m typing this article on, is costing my 65 watts of power. While average desktop computers cost more than 450 watts of power. It also depends if you are using an LCD or a CRT monitor on the desktop. CRT monitors take significantly more power than LCD monitors.

Justifying the initial cost difference
So if you are planning to buy a new computer with latest specs, laptops are available in all latest performance parts and components. Only factor that hinders your decisiont of purchasing a laptop is the initial cost. Though, these differences are also diminishing constantly, here is a simple analysis to convince you further.

A typical desktop computer with a monitor screen costs around $600 and lets say will be useful for next two years. An average laptop with similar specs will cost you around $900 and will have a similar useful life of two years. So the laptop costs you $300 more than that of your desktop.

If you run both the computers for five hours a day, you will definitely save more than $300 in electricity costs in two years so in the longer run you will save money as well as power on laptops.

Netbooks are even a lower cost and lower power variant that will be a good option if you are not a power user. Netbooks have longer battery life, smaller screens, optimized processing and are even more convenient to use for some users.

Monitor Power Consumption – CRT vs LCD

Posted by BA on Feb 14, 2010 in Green Computing | 35 comments

This is a known fact that CRT monitors take more  power as compared to the LCDs.

If you have a CRT monitor, the big monitor with the bloated tail and a few KGs weight, you are consuming the most power. The power consumption of a CRT monitor ranges from 100watts to 300 watts depending on the size, model and make of the monitor. Typically, the older models used to consume more power and newer ones are better in terms of power consumption.

If you have a flatter variant of a screen that could be a TFT, LCD, LED or Plasma screen, you are using less power as compared to the CRT monitors. Most of the laptops, hand held devices like pdas and mobile phones are using this kind of displays these days. If you are using LCD, TFT or LED monitor for your computer as external display, your typical power consumption is somewhere between 50 watts to 200 watts depending on the size. For example this 15” LCD I have consumes 55 watts. There can be screens that take even less power.

This worksheet provides a more quantitative way of calculating your poswer consumption depending on different monitors you are using.

http://downloads.techrepublic.com.com/5138-10589-5698031.html?tag=content%3bleftCol

See more articles on Green Computing at home and office.

How much power does my computer consume?

Posted by BA on Feb 12, 2010 in Uncategorized | 46 comments

This is a typical question every eco friendly minded person asks himself. I cannot tell you exactly but here are a few general guidelines that will tell you how much power your computer generally consumes.
Keeping it very simple, there are two main components of a computer that take most of the power. A screen and the CPU box (that contains most of the electronics of your computer).  So we will have different power consumption ranges for these two components.

Power consumption for Computer Screens

In general, the power consumption is higher for CRT monitors. The older fat monitors and TVs are all CRTs. You can read more about the CRT here. The flatter, thinner and lighter monitors take lesser power and are eventually more green and eco friendly. These could be LCD, TFT, LED or Plasma monitors and have their own different properties, but in general they consume power lesser than a CRT. Following is a very general comparison:

So an obvious option is to ditch your CRT and move on with a lower power variant, most popular are the LCD monitors.

Power Consumption for CPU

If you have a desktop computer, your CPU will comprise of several parts and all these parts will determine how much power your PC will consume. Moreover, what operation you are performing on the computer will also determine the power consumption. As a rule of thumb, a typical desktop computer consumes around 300 Watts. If you want to know about your desktop, try to find the power supply inside your CPU box and the sticker will show the total power of the machine as shown in the image below.

Following is an example of a typical 300 Watts desktop power-supply side sticker:

In case you have a laptop, the power consumption is much lowe. I’ll be posting something about it in my next post.

Go green – Guides to green home computing and Green SME computing

Posted by BA on Feb 10, 2010 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

This page will serve as an index to our environment friendly posts focused on green computing.

• Power Consumption – Laptops are Better than Desktops
• Monitor power consumption – CRT vs LCD
• How much power does my computer consume
• Power saving for green computing
• Green way of shopping online – Amazon.com
• Go-Green – What is it all about?
• BA’s Brain Waves goes Mobile enabled
• 2010- Lets go green

Power saving for green computing

Posted by BA on Feb 10, 2010 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Green computing is about environment friendly ways of computing including materials used in construction, ways of use to improve power efficiency and conserve resources and once the divce has reached the end of useful life, dispose It off or recycle it in an environment friendly manner.

While we will discuss other aspects on the blog as well, we will continue to emphasize on power saving for home computing and computing in small to medium enterprise. In larger organizations, the power conservation is based on the similar principals but will need different equipment.

We will keep a close eye on power consumption of different electronic equipments around you especially equipment related to home computing including monitors, CPU boxes, network equipment, speakers etc.

So stay tuned for power efficient computing and other related posts on basitali.com