How in the Tech

Microsoft software allows for the tracking of PC power consumption

By Adam Myers ⋅ June 1, 2010 ⋅ Tags: Optimization, Windows

Intelligent energy consumption and green energy in general are constantly splashing across the news headlines. There is a lot of excitement behind initiatives associated reducing the world’s energy requirements. We were all brought up to turn off the lights as we left the room, so the concept should not be foreign to any of us.

As technology enthusiasts we are likely aware that one of the greatest offenders of energy usage is our electronics. Many of us leave the home for the day yet the desktop PC remains powered on – seemingly for little reason other than it’s raring to go when you arrive back at home that evening. The truth is, power management features have advanced so greatly on the PC that the computer can come out of a low-energy sleep state and into a fully functioning environment in just a few seconds. This is typically more than enough for all but a select few users – yet we still ignore it. Habits are tough to break, after all.

However, have you ever wondered just how much electricity your PC consumes throughout it’s day to day operations. Your power supply on the PC is rated for a specific wattage, but it’s not accurate to say your PC is consuming that amount – it only pulls as much as it needs. If you are interested in tracking your power consumption, either for an eventual goal of saving some money or identifying power offenders in your laptop – Microsoft’s Joulemeter may provide some great insight!

Joulemeter is an alpha-level free software application available by Microsoft through their Microsoft Research website. The application, once installed, tucks neatly away in your tray tracking energy usage of your desktop or laptop. Power consumption is measured in watts and broken down into areas of: base, cpu, disk, monitor, and logically total. Realizing your disk takes 10Watts to run may cause you to power down the drive when idle on your laptop, and thereby reclaiming a few more minutes on your battery life.

Joulemeter can provide rather accurate assessments on your desktop, but at the end they are just estimates. However, the situation is much more accurate on a laptop – simply allow Joulemeter to run and collect it’s statistics while the laptop is running off battery power.

Joulemeter is not the only software out there that can extract this information, but it’s from Microsoft and that tends to carry some weight for many users.

Download Microsoft Joulemeter