The Earth is our home for survival, but with the continuous development of human activities, the Earth’s environment is facing more and more challenges. Air pollution, water scarcity, climate change and other issues are becoming increasingly serious, posing a huge threat to human survival and development.
March 23rd, which has just passed, is Earth Hour Day, which calls on humanity around the world to turn off unnecessary lights and consumables for one hour at 20:30 on the last Saturday night of March. Although this one hour accounts for a very low proportion of the 8760 hours spent throughout the year, it demonstrates everyone’s support for action to address climate change. How many friends have responded to this event?
In fact, the concept of energy conservation and environmental protection should always be integrated into daily life, including when using laptops. Although most laptops have relatively low energy consumption, due to their large quantity, paying attention to energy-saving details in daily use can still achieve considerable energy-saving effects.
Here are some energy-saving tips for everyone, which not only contribute to environmental protection, but also help extend the service life and battery life of laptop batteries.
Tips 1. Choose the correct power mode
Power mode is a preset feature of the Windows operating system that allows users to choose the power mode that is suitable for their usage scenarios, such as energy-saving, balanced, and high-performance modes. For daily entertainment and office use, choosing energy-saving and balanced modes is already sufficient, and high-performance modes are not necessary.
In addition, some laptop manufacturers will install management software in their own laptops, most of which will provide the power mode “automatic” selection mode. Compared to the power mode provided by Windows, automatic selection will automatically switch according to the user’s usage needs, without the need for manual modification, which is relatively simple.
Tips. 2 Screen Brightness
Apart from the CPU and GPU, the most energy-efficient component of a laptop may be the screen, and the brighter the screen settings, the more power it naturally consumes. Generally speaking, the brightness of a laptop screen ranges from 250 to 450 nits.
When used indoors, even in a relatively bright office environment, a brightness of 300 nits is already bright enough to clearly see the screen content. When used in relatively dim homes, 200 nits may be sufficient. If you sit by the window, 400 nits will be enough.
As for the scenarios where laptops are used outdoors, there are not many because they are really hard to see. We can refer to the typical brightness of an iPhone screen, where the iPhone 12 Pro Max has a typical maximum brightness of 800 nits, while the iPhone 13/14/15 Pro Max has a typical maximum brightness of 1000 nits. The typical brightness here is what we understand as conventional brightness.
Even with the 800 nits brightness of the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the screen image may not be very clear in direct outdoor light, while the 1000 nits brightness of the iPhone 13/14/15 Pro Max is more suitable.
Setting too high screen brightness can easily cause eye fatigue and even affect visual health. Therefore, it is recommended that when using a laptop, try not to set too high screen brightness.
Tips. 3 Closing backend applications
Many software programs are set to start automatically when installed, used, and updated. As the number of programs that start automatically increases, it not only slows down the startup speed, but also occupies resources such as CPU and memory, resulting in meaningless performance loss and power consumption.
So everyone can reduce unnecessary losses by disabling the startup software. At the same time, it is also possible to regularly check whether installed applications are still in use, and choose to uninstall them if not in use for a long time. The above methods can be implemented through the built-in task manager of Windows or through third-party computer management software.
Tips. 4 Avoid connecting too many useless devices externally
Sometimes, we also have the need to use devices such as USB drives, portable hard drives, docking stations, printers, etc. You can disconnect them after use, otherwise they will continue to be powered on and consume meaningless power.
Tips. 5-7: Turn off keyboard backlight/Bluetooth/Wi Fi
Although these are not large consumers of electricity, they are also meaningless consumption accumulated over a long period of time.
Tips. 8 Automatic Sleep and Hibernation
In Windows settings, we can set the screen to turn off and sleep after a certain period of time, which can effectively reduce battery consumption.
Additionally, it should be noted that the Windows system’s sleep ≠ sleep is a different concept, and sleep is a design specifically designed for laptops.
Sleep is an energy-saving state that can quickly enter the system, but it requires a certain amount of power consumption due to the need to keep data in memory; And [Hibernation] can further reduce power consumption by storing data in the hard drive. If you haven’t used the laptop for a long period of time, you can choose to sleep.
Tips. 9 Regular cleaning of dust
Perhaps everyone will be curious, what is the relationship between cleaning dust and energy conservation? After using a laptop for a long time, dust, catkins, and other debris may enter the interior of the laptop, which may cause a large amount of dust to adhere to the fan blades, and catkins may block the heat dissipation duct, thereby affecting the overall heat dissipation ability of the laptop.
The more severe the blockage, the more difficult it is to smoothly dissipate the heat generated by the laptop, causing the body to heat up, CPU performance to decline, and the fan to spin wildly, then entering a vicious cycle. So it is recommended that users with conditions can perform an annual cleaning operation according to the usage environment.
Tips. 10 Choose a laptop as needed
In the current market environment, there is a phenomenon of excessive PC performance. For most users, their actual needs are not high, mainly limited to daily office work, online browsing, and audio-visual entertainment.
However, some users may not have a good understanding of hardware, or may be misled by advertising and choose laptops with stronger performance. A 15W low-voltage U may be enough, but they are recommended to choose products with standard voltage processors and independent displays. The power consumption may increase to 70-100W or even higher, which is really unnecessary.
Summary:
In daily life, when using laptops, by paying attention to some small details and taking corresponding measures, we can play a positive role in energy conservation and emission reduction.
These tips not only help protect the environment, reduce energy consumption, but also extend the battery life and battery life of laptops. Meanwhile, choosing a suitable laptop and on-demand configuration are also important factors in energy conservation.
Only when each of us realizes the importance of energy conservation and emission reduction, and takes practical actions, can we jointly create a greener and more environmentally friendly future.
