Running a PC does consume energy. Even if you think that you are not in front of your computer working, if your PC is running or in stand by, it does consume energy. If your electricity cost has gone up for no reason other than that you leave your PC running the whole day then you might want to look into some of the tools that Windows Vista provides to adjust your power settings on your computer to save on the power consumption.

To get to the Power Options in Windows Vista, follow these steps,

Step-1:

Click the “Start” button and click on the “Control Panel” menu.

Step-2:

Once you are in the Control Panel click on the “System and Maintenance” option.

Step-3:

On the “System and Maintenance” window click on the “Power Options” link.

Step-4:

Vista will list the predefined power options on your computer and hopefully, if you haven’t changed any power settings so far, will have the ‘’Balanced” option selected under ‘”Preferred plans”.

As you can see, a “Balanced Plan” has a moderate energy savings with a moderate performance but there are settings that could be tweaked for your need. A “Power Saver” plan will save more power but the performance will suffer. On the other hand, a “High Performance’” plan will consume more energy and gives you the best performance.

To save on your electricity bill, just choosing the “Balanced Plan” won’t just be enough. Obviously “Power Saver” plan will make a dent on performance. So how do we save on power without affecting performance much? Follow these steps to save on your electricity bill while not giving up much on the performance,

Step-1:

Click on the “Create a power plan” option on the left of the window.

Step-2:

On the “Create a Power Plan” window click on the “Power Saver” option and then give your power plan a name. Click on the “Next” button.

Step-3:

Leave the defaults for both “Turn off the display” and “Sleep” options, we’ll customize the settings later, just click on the “Create” button.

Step-4:

Vista will create the new power option for you and will display the above dialog. As you can see, your newly created power option is selected by default with no rankings. You might also notice that the power option you’ve started with (in this case, “Power Saver”) is moved down so that you can hide that power option if you wish.

Now, click on the “Change plan settings” links below the newly created power option.

Step-5:

Vista will display the default settings for that power plan. Click on the “Change advanced power settings” link.

Step-6:

On the “Power Options” dialog, go thru each of the settings and on the “Setting:” option choose the option that makes more sense to you. I would typically set these for a desktop,

1. Additional setting >> Require a password on wakeup >> “Yes”
2. Hard disk >> Turn off hard disk after >> “20 minutes”
3. Wireless Adapter Settings >> Power Saving Mode >> “Maximum Power Setting” (since I don’t use wireless on my desktop)
4. Sleep >> Sleep after >> “30 minutes”
5. Sleep >> Allow hybrid sleep >> “On”
6. Sleep >> Hibernate after >> “Never”
7. USB >> USB selective suspend setting >> “Enabled”
8. Power button and lid >> Power button action >> “Shut down”
9. Power button and lid >> Sleep button action >> “Sleep”
10. Power button and lid >> Start menu power button >> “Sleep”
11. PCI Express >> Link State Power Management >> “Maximum power savings”
12. Search and Indexing >> Power Savings Mode >> “Balanced”
13. Display >> Turn off display after >> “20 Minutes”
14. Display >> Adaptive display >> “On”
15. Windows DreamScene Settings >> “Power Saver”

If you are using a laptop, you might want to explore the different options on 3, 6, 8, 12 and 13. Keep in mind that you want to balance between power saving and performance.

I hope this helps you save a little bit on your electricity bill and conserving energy is good for the environment as well. So, go ahead and make your PC more power efficient.

If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask us in comments.