What tools or measures are available for saving energy in desktop computers / PCs?  Is there an easy way to switch between GUI and CLI that really stops and starts GUI to minimise the power consumption of graphics card whenever GUI is not required?
6387
I'm trying to install the Jupiter power settings app but, I read it is no longer compatible with the new kernel. Is there a similar program or a way to manage the power settings on 13.04?
11756
I have a number of different drives that I use for different purposes but I only use two of them frequently. I would like for the others to enter sleep mode when not in use, but never my main two.  Is there any way to edit power saving settings for individual drives?
42636
Is there any tool that helps to determine the weakest link of my current laptop hardware specification? Any online guide to help me choose nice balanced configuration for the new laptop?    I need to find the answers:  a) which component should be invested to increase overall performance the most? CPU? GPU? RAM?  b) which component may decrease overall performance and work as a bottleneck for the specific configuration?    The question is general and regards both to validating the current hardware usage (and its possible bottlenecks) and estimating the performance (and avoiding possible issues) of specs I'm going to choose and buy.    P.S. For the specific laptop I need to replace, the following software will be in use:    Windows antivirus, firewall, dropbox service running in the background mail app + web browser with a dozen or so tabs open from time to time: libreoffice apps, movies, games (both online and installed).
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Is there something similar to the "Open Command Window Here" Windows Powertoy for Mac OS? I've found a couple plugins through a google search but wanted to see what works best for developers out there.
2848
I want to do a small computer just for internet browsing. I dont want to load a desktop environment to keep RAM, CPU and GPU ussage as low as possible. The computer is going to run on a ARM CPU. I dont care with Distro I use, I thought about good old plain Debian.
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My computer is taking a very long time to shutdown.   How can I identify the culprit? I don't want to wait minutes for my computer to shutdown...  Is there a program I can use to track how long it takes to shutdown?
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I've set up a friends laptop with Ubuntu 12.04LTS with the Cinnamon desktop, and I'm having a few issues with the power settings.  As far as I can tell I've got every setting to "Do Nothing" when the lid is closed, however it still Suspends when I close the lid. After much Googling I'm still no closer to a solution, so I came here for help.
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I am getting a web server setup at home on an older AMD 2400+ desktop. I have Ubuntu 11.04 installed and running however, after a time, I can no longer browse to the server. When I go to the keyboard and press a key, everything magically works again.   I have looked through the BIOS and I am not seeing any power saving features enabled. Is there anything like that in Ubuntu? Can it be disabled?  I don't have any GUI installed. This is console only.
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I turned on my computer today and all of a sudden my power usage was spiking for everything. Not just in games but when i open task manager and watch videos...  I have never seen this happen on my computer before, and it only started today after turning on my computer.  My power supply is a EVGA 600B 80+   My amd integrated graphics is disabled and I am running a EVGA Geforce gtx 1060 superclocked.
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I watch a lot of movie's on my computer which is connected to my TV. Problem is i built the pc to be a gaming computer and it has the power supply to match (1200w).  Is there a way to set it into a "Low power mode" whilst i am playing a movie to use as little power as possible.  I am running -  Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit VLC for playing movies Connect to my TV via a standard HDMI cable
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As far as I know, today most of the computers are made from semiconductor devices, so the energy consumed all turns into the heat emitted into space.  But I wonder, is it necessary to consume energy to perform computation?   If so, is there a theoretical numerical lower bound of the energy usage ? (I even have no idea about how to measure the amount of "computation") If not, is there a physically-practical Turing-complete model that needs no energy?     edit: Thank @Nathaniel for rapidly answering the question and pointing out it's actually . Also thank @horchler for referring to the  and the related . There are lots of useful information in the comments; thank every one! This whole stuff is really interesting!
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Just wondering how I can put my idle computer time to some real use  what services like seti@home are out there and worth supporting ?
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I use debian wheezy xfce and want to set up my desktop. But I read some settings are redundant. Hence I want to understand how everything works, but I am massively lost. Can someone please sort, complete and entitle the following list and explain me what uses what?  KDE, Gnome, XFCE, X11, dgm, kdm, GTK(x), Sessions, lxdm, lightdm, compiz, Kwin, window- and desktopmanager... etc  Always when I think I understood it I find new expressions I never heard before. Okay heres what I know. Gnome, KDE, XFCE are Desktops. They are on top of the stack. X11 is a library that displays something and makes use of the graphic driver, hence I think it is at the bottom of the stack. (But above the graphic driver)...
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In questions  and in websites everywhere it's noted that SSDs use much less power than HDDs... usually citing ~2 W vs ~6 W for HDDs, my question (and sorry if its stupid just need to be exact) is that per hour? Need to calculate costs savings in power consumption if we switched all our workstations to SSDs
60582
Is there any program that logs the CPU usage of all programs? I want to know, over a period of one month, which programs use the CPU more intensely.
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In the Windows 7 Power Options, under "PCI Express", I can adjust "Link State Power Management".  The options are:   Off Moderate power savings Maximum power savings   What do these settings do?  Is there any reason to enable it when my laptop is plugged in?
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How do I change the low and critical battery levels to below 10%? I understand that this is a reasonable limit for most portable computers, but what about those with large batteries? On my computer (which has two batteries) 10% is an hour of runtime and is therefore way too high.