Reusable tote bag? Check. Prius? Check. Rooftop solar panels? Check. In the bid to secure your green bragging rights, you have the usual suspects covered.

But what about your personal computer?

After all, the object that, via the World Wide Web, can supply you with more data on how to lead an environmentally sound life can plus be one of the things that contributes to the very same problem.

Consider the following: A standard-issue PC, left on all the instance (a not-uncommon situation) consumes 746 kilowatts per hour a year, according to estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. By comparison, a refrigerator uses about 500 kilowatts a year. Surely there are things that users can do to reduce their computer’s environmental footprint. Read on to learn ways to run your PC more efficiently, manufacture environmentally intelligent purchasing decisions and to dispose of an old computer properly.

potential Corrupts

The first piece of advice is

the simplest: Don’t leave your computer on all the moment. Shutting it down at night should reduce its capability consumption by around 500 kilowatts annually. In addition, your computer should be set to go to sleep after periods of inactivity. Different parts of your system can be set to sleep at different times: Setting your energy-saving preferences to put your hard drive to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity is a good benchmark; your entire computer (which takes more moment to wake up) should be set to go to sleep after 30 minutes.

And ditch your screensaver. Screensavers can use your hard drive to capability up and photo screensavers require the additional use of a graphics card, which means you’ll have the hard drive, graphics card and monitor all in use.

Screensavers are “a throwback from the days of really old-school CRT monitors,” Barbara Grimes, spokeswoman for the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, said…

Original post by dhiram