Power saving on PCs.. Is there anything I can do, or buy, which will lower the power consumption of my PC? Is there such a thing as energy saving PSUs? or am I left with the crap power saving options in windows.. I want to leave my PC on to download stuff but our electric bills are massive and I'm getting it in the neck... Cheers..
the closest you can get to energy saving PSUs are self managed PSUs that slow down their fans when running cool and which speed up when hot. My PC does this with all of the fans - below 44C it's virtually silent, whereas at 60C it sounds like a vacuum. Doesn't really save that much energy though. The only way to go with power supplies is more efficiency. You can get high-end power supplies that are really efficient and they save you lots of moolah - the one in my PC is a 250 watt and it runs a graphics card, dvd writer, two hard drives and a whole load of extra crap. Most cheap power supplies would have to be 400-500W to handle the same load. Check out this , it explains why this is the case. The closest you can get to saving money without these is the following: 1) Using the bog-standard Windows PWM, tell your monitor to turn itself off if you're not using the box for more than 5 mins. 2) Where possible, unplug any unnecessary fans inside the case and make sure the box is well ventilated to prevent overheating (which diminishes efficiency). 3) Have one PC in the house that acts as a file server and downloads everyone's shite, and leave that on permanently, allowing everyone else to only use their PCs where needed.
if you can andy, try and get one with a 120mm fan - the larger fans can remove more air from the case with the same revolutions per minute and they're quieter than the standard PSUs
