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Quick and dirty power reduction

Published 11:16, 05 May 10

A work colleague showed me a new piece of Green software called Gronola (formally called MicroMiser) which is quite simple in what it does but seems to work very effectively.

This got me thinking back to a presentation I did on Green Computing last year and in particular, the free software that is around to help you make your PC greener.

Gronola uses technology in the background called dynamic voltage and frequency scaling or DVFS for short. This technology is designed to lower your CPU power usage when your computer is not being used. The manufactures uses special algorithms they that claim they can predict quite accurately when a computer is used for a high CPU hogging task. As well as the software reducing your CPU output it also displays how much energy and money you have saved by running the software.

While Gronola (which has both windows and Linux versions) is free for personnel use. The company behind the software has a commercial edition that is a server and client edition.

Gronola of course is not the only free tools available that can help make your PC more energy efficient. There are tools such as the EZWizard & EZGPO tools provided by EnergyStar that helps you set the power management settings of your PC.

Unfortunately, the Energystar software is for Windows only however the LESSWATTS project has number of projects for Linux users to help with power management. Projects such as the PowerTop software that reports on what is currently using most power within your system.

An important fact to remember that the software is just half the answer and the more important area to focus on is the mindset of being green. Be that changing the views of bosses at work so company focuses on green issues more or just making sure that you in more green in the way you act at your home.

For more information

http://grano.la

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_power_mgt_ez_wiz

Tags: windows