I first heard about this site a few months ago and I’ve been meaning to blog about it for a while. LocalCooling is a 100% free application you can download which will optimize your PC’s power consumption and thus help you reduce your energy footprint. The application requires Windows XP to run.

The features it offers are nothing new. Most if not all of the features it offers, such as powering down the hard drives or hibernating the PC after a set amount of time, can all be achieved via the Windows control panel. But the application allows you to set these features in a much more user friendly way than via the control panel.

When you install the application it calculates roughly how much energy your PC currently consumes, using criteria such as the number of hard drives connected, the type of monitor, processor and graphics card installed, etc. This baseline figure is then used to calculate how much energy you can save. You can then set the power saving mode to low, medium, high or custom. Using one of these power saving settings and the baseline figure mentioned earlier, it then starts to calculate how much energy you save in real-time via a small widget displayed on your desktop, like the one below.

I prefer to choose the high power saving mode, but you can also set a custom mode to fine tune the settings. For example you can tell the application not to hibernate the PC if certain applications are running, or not to hibernate before a certain time of day, etc. You can also configure after how long the monitor should be switched off or when to spin down the disks.

You can also join the LocalCooling community and thereby submit your energy savings online. This enables LocalCooling to more accurately measure how much the application is saving energy around the world. It also offers you the opportunity to see how much energy you save compared to others, and if you do well you might appear on their leaderboard of energy savers too. You can either register on your own or as part of a team. LocalCooling say that a company with 100 computers could save up to $2000/year by running this application.

I’ve been using the application for a few weeks and it works like a charm. I particularly like the hibernate setting. That has come in handy a few times where I’ve forgotten to switch my PC off.

Now if only we could have a Linux/Open Source version of this then we would be on to a real winner. I’m only an occasional Windows XP user so I don’t get the full benefits.

Actions

• Leave a comment
• Subscribe
• FREE Newsletter

Bookmark

• Facebook
• del.icio.us
• Stumble it!
• Digg It

Related Articles

• No Related Post