Green Computing.

With prices of almost everything rising, it is high time that we do something. We can save some cash if we use computers the greener way. There are multiple ways to do this.

One way is to turn off your monitors. Be it LCD or CRT, power can be saved by turning them off. Switching from CRT to LCD monitors can most of the time cut power usage by half. In windows, you can set the monitor to turn off after a certain amout of time of idling in Power Management. Turning off the screen saver and letting the monitor sleep is also a good way to cut power usage as LCD's are not so prone to burn in compared to CRT monitors. The brightness of the monitor should also be adjusted to the brightness akin to a well lit book for comfort reasons and for optimal power usage.

CPUs can be underclock to run at lower frequencies to draw less power and for a quieter environment as the fans dont need to run at full speed to cool the chip. Enabling SpeedStep or Cool and Quiet for Intel and AMD respectively cuts power draw when the CPU is idle. Uses of Windows XP and earlier might have to download the drivers for it to work though. Windows Vista user just have to set their power management settings to Balanced.

Hope this helps!