While we all know you can lower your electricity bills by limiting the time your computer is on, it may surprise you to find out that having an optimized PC would also save you money on electricity. Most of us often leave our computers on 24 hour a day as to facilitate the easy access of the Internet. We don’t want to wait several minutes to be able to check our e-mail, and if you have a slow computer or don’t use free computer maintenance on a regular basis your reboot time may be even longer. Making sure your computer is optimized is a quick and easy way to lower the amount of power your computer uses while also maximizing your computing experience.
image courtesy of flickr user: jnyemb
Why Does PC Optimization Matter?
Your PC operates by accessing data stored both on your hard drive and RAM. Your PC’s hard drive stores a lot of the archived data like photos and documents while the RAM (random access memory) is where the information the programs and applications are currently using is stored. Not having enough RAM usually means your computer takes longer to open applications like Microsoft Word, which often does take up a lot of memory on your computer’s RAM. A computer running Windows 7 or the upcoming Windows 8 should have at least two gigabytes of RAM to run smoothly. Consider increasing the amount of RAM your computer has if you experience lengthy or often computer slow downs. Even if your computer is optimized using free computer maintenance it may not perform as quickly as your would like if there is not enough RAM.
Your computer can also be slowed down if it is not properly and often defragged using free computer maintenance. Using Disk Defragmenter is crucial to having an optimized PC because it deals with the core of how your computer accesses, modifies or deletes information. Ideally when a file is stored on your hard drive it is stored in an organized manner that allows the computer to quickly access that bit of information quickly for later use. However this does not always occur and your computer may save one photo on one physical place on your hard drive while saving another photo on a completely other place, known as a sector, on your hard drive. Ideally these files should be saved right next to each other, but if they are not your computer must spend extra time and energy searching for the file and then presenting it you. This task may seem insignificant but these small lapses in search and modification add up over time to build a considerable amount of wait time and computer energy consumption.
Consider this: Test results have shown that a PC with one drive and moderate fragmentation (7-8,000 fragments), will consume 12.4% more energy a year than a system that’s not fragmented (test results taken from 3D Professor whitepaper). On a server, that equates to an additional $24.16 of energy a year.
Maintaining an optimized PC using free computer maintenance on a regular basis not only speeds up your computer but also saves your money on electricity. This number can add up if you have more than one computer or if you have an office full of computers. Consider yourself informed and do your part to be green and save electricity while also optimizing your PC!
