Ways to save power

[Panda-Assassin]

Could anyone suggest ways that I can save power? I know I'm not the one paying my power bills, but I also don't want to be the idiot that wastes it. I use the computer a lot or whenever I can and I'm guessing that's wasting a lot of power.

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Also is there a way for me not to get up early (around 5am) to turn on my computer so that I could download torrents?

Limewire:
I use Limewire to download my torrents. Sadly it does't have a time download scheduler, but I heard it was fast.

uTorrent:
This has a time download scheduler, but I remembering someone told me it being slow and I've experience it myself.

So which one would be the better option? Using Limewire, fast, no scheduler, me waking up early or using uTorrent, slow, with scheduler, with out me waking up, but I'd have to leave the computer on until the time reaches off-peak (2-8am)

Any suggestions?

Hopefully, I didn't put two posts into one. I just thought that the second one relates closely to power.

Thank you in advance.

[UndeadxAssassin]

There are really lots of ways to save power, me paying electric bills myself. Most of them are really simple: Don't take really long hot showers, turn off all lights that aren't being used, open windows (in the summer, duh) instead of AC (also summer, duh), FULLY TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER when not in use. That one's a big one. Most people just leave it to hibernate or standby and it does add up.
If you have a laptop, wait for the power light to shut off before you close it (cuz often if you close it before it finishes, it'll still be on).
Don't leave on stuff that you aren't using.
Small simple stuff.

As for your other question: The less time you keep your computer on, the less money you have to pay. So, doing the least amount of work would be nice, HOWEVER if you have to wake up at 5 in the morning just to do something, I would say it's not worth it. There's a function for limewire that saves your downloads if you haven't finished them (It's on by default). Use it. When you're doing work on the computer, that would be a good time to download, as well. Of course, it'll be slower, but it'll waste less energy AND you won't have to wake up at 5.

[Risen]

BitTorrent is a nice alternative to limewire, which is slow.

[Senethior459]

I was going to post yesterday and ask what dimension Limewire was faster than torrents, but I figured it was offtopic. Now that it's been brought up already, however:
I've always found torrents to be way faster than direct downloads via Limewire. uTorrent is an incredibly small program, light on system resources... the program itself is way faster than Limewire. Also, torrents tend to be of higher quality/safer. At least, the top five results of any search are not virus-ridden fake porn videos, as always happens on Limewire. Not to mention, torrents themselves usually download much faster than Limewire. If the torrent has a good seed:peer ratio, then you can get some really good speeds on it.

[weirdone2]

Energy saving methods.

Try not to use the big energy suckers except at the lower energy/cost ratio, call your electric company to find out when the right time for that is.

Try not to use the dryer if you have one, instead hang your clothes up outside. Don't have 3 different alarm clocks set up just to wake yourself up. Unplug things that don't get used daily.

Replace any old light bulbs with the more efficient halogen ones.(I have 5 white lights in my room, bright. XD) If you don't plan on upgrading your computer only put a power supply that meets thee requirements, don't have a 1050 watter in a computer that only needs 300 watts. :O

Wash dishes by hand, if you have a dishwasher sell it. :O And when washing dishes after you finish leave the hot water in there for maybe 30mins for those dishes that come by a little later.

Check your insulation make sure everything is well insulated if not, get some of your buddys together, don't click me some beer and fix er up.

Thats all I can think of right now use it well, now and in the future.

As for the schedule deal, I know theres things out there that will start your computer automatically at designated times, and then you just have to have a scheduler/bot setup to run w/e you need it to.

Doh I'm out of almonds, Doomed.

[Dekar]

Get a Sheevaplug for all your torrent needs, or a mobile phone with torrent client. Just use anything arm (iPhone/Googlephone/OpenPandora/Sheevaplug) or mips based (psp and some routers) and you don't have to care about the bills anymore.

[Risen]

A torrent client is only as fast as the configurations you've set for it.

[Dekar]

Only as fast as the seeders seed...

[Risen]

Yeah.

Don't all Torrent Clients have the same seeders?

[Panda-Assassin]

Get a Sheevaplug for all your torrent needs, or a mobile phone with torrent client. Just use anything arm (iPhone/Googlephone/OpenPandora/Sheevaplug) or mips based (psp and some routers) and you don't have to care about the bills anymore.

Whats a sheevaplug?