Technology Services

Enabling the power management settings on campus and personal computers is a simple and painless way to save energy and money, and reduce our impact on the environment.  Using power management settings wisely can save more than 600 KWh of electricity per computer, per year.  To the typical user, this represents $60 saved, and a ton-and-a-half of CO2 not released into the atmosphere.  Applied to the thousands of computers on a university campus, the savings can be considerable.  The power management settings control how and when your computer enters into a low-power mode, usually after a specific period of inactivity.

Typically, the power management settings are applied to the monitor, the hard drive and, and the computer itself.  Some peripherals, such as printers and scanners, may have their own internal power management settings.  On most systems, simply moving the mouse or tapping the keyboard “wakes” the computer from the low-power “sleep” mode. 

Setting your entire system to enter sleep or standby mode after 30 minutes of inactivity is also a good practice, though you may want to consult with your system administrator to make sure that you don’t interrupt overnight updates or other activities that require the computer to stay awake.