When enabled, power management places your monitor, hard drives and computer into a low-power “sleep” mode after a period of inactivity. A simple touch of the mouse or keyboard “wakes” the computer, hard drive and monitor in seconds. Power management features are standard in Windows and Macintosh operating systems.
The use of power management can reduce energy consumption and cooling costs, reduce noise, and prolong the battery life of laptop PCs. And when your PC consumes less power, you reduce your impact on the environment.
To improve the power efficiency of your PC, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative recommends the following power management settings:
- Monitor/display sleep: Turn off after 15 minutes or less
- Turn off hard drives/hard disk sleep: 15 minutes or less
- System standby/sleep: After 30 minutes or less
Instructions for enabling power management vary by operating system. See Climate Savers Computing for detailed instructions for your specific operating system.