It seems such a shame to dump all this perfectly serviceable IT

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I was flicking through the copy of IT Week that arrived on my doormat a few minutes ago and Martin Courtney’s article on unwanted but serviceable IT equipment (eBay rejects worthless WiFi) struck a chord with me (as someone who has many items of old IT equipment in the garage).

Anyone prepared to make me an offer for a couple of old PCs, a 14″ CRT monitor, some 802.11b WiFi kit, 512MB of nearly new RAM from a Mac Mini, a perfectly good HP iPAQ that never gets used, or an APC UPS in need of a new battery? No? Thought not.

Turn off your PC at night and save the planet (well, at least the English countryside and some cash)

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I was interested to hear the following information in a presentation by Microsoft UK’s James O’Neill this afternoon:

  • A single personal computer PC draws 125W of power each hour (but 5W when in sleep mode).
  • Running that PC for 50 hours a week (instead of 24×7) saves 120W (0.12KW) x 6160 hours = 740 KWh per year.
  • Generating 740KWh of electricity represents 1/3 tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) per PC per year.

Maybe if we all turned off our PCs at night we wouldn’t need to fill the English countryside with wind turbines…

Oh yes – in case you don’t care about global warming, 740KWh of electricity costs around £45 a year [source: my domestic electricity bill from Powergen].