How to make my desktop PC more power efficient?

[Ken g6]

It's an Internet facing server (24/7), it handles my websites and e-mail so I'm reticent about using it for day-to-day stuff like browsing. I considered the possibility of running a VM such as XP with anti-virus on it.

If the HTPC is on 24/7, saving power on it may be more useful than saving power on your desktop. Again, what's in it? And how much power is it drawing?

Edit: Looks like £0.15/kWh is a good estimate of electricity prices.

 

[greenhawk]

as mentioned, when you start talking single digit wattage savings, you are not going to be cost effective in getting them any time in the next year or two.

if wanting to use less power, better to look elsewhere in the house. A old fridge or one with bad seals on the door cam waste more power than you haveing the computer on.

swaping a old style light to a new compact fluro can save upto 80Watts per socket. Turning off equipment like TV instead of just a soft off (ie: via the remote) could save upto 10W per device. more if they are old style units.

Having a server or HTPC on all the time when not needed can easily kill any power savings done on the PC.

The biggest electricity waste for most people is heating. Either the hot water or just room heating. Those things work in the KWatt range, The old bar heaters / colum oil heaters can so 2000Watts. 200 times more than the most likly inprovement that doing the above recomendations to your PC will save.

 

[Zap]

If the HTPC is on 24/7, saving power on it may be more useful than saving power on your desktop. Again, what's in it? And how much power is it drawing?

Great point!

Also, what does it do and how much does doing it load the system (CPU utilization, etc.)?

I've known plenty of servers in businesses that are still in operation and are old enough that they could probably get similar performance out of the latest Intel Atom. D: