Climate Savers guide to boost PC power management
Climate Savers guide to boost PC power management
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The Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI) has drawn up a design guide to improve the reliability of PC power management.
The guide - available at www.climatesaverscomputing.org - offers instructions on how to build energy-efficient, power-managed client platforms and tackles the reliability issues of sleep state standby (S3) technology.
It was drawn up by CSCI’s power management workgroup, including PC-makers Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, chips firms Intel and LSI, and software giant Microsoft.
Effective power management tools can create computing energy savings of up to 60%, says CSCI, a US-based NGO aimed at reducing IT-related energy consumption.
Executive director Pat Tiernan said 90% of desktops do not use power management, even though the feature was supported by all operating systems.
“Users prefer to have instant access to their network. Our challenge is to lower an idle, unused computer's energy consumption without sacrificing system productivity or performance.”
The guide tackles technical barriers such as the networking protocol, and hardware and software latencies that adhere to the forthcoming Ecma Network Proxy Standard.
“By offering solutions to various technical issues, we hope the design guide will lead to an increased deployment of computer power management across the board, with improved designs leading to greater consumer adoption,” Tiernan said.
“Implementing power management allows a desktop or laptop to quickly transition into and out of a lower energy state, consuming as little as three to five watts of power versus more than 50 watts when left in the Idle state.”
The Power Management Design Guide provides a platform-level, reliable power management solution blueprint for client OEMs, ODMs, component manufacturers and software developers, CSCI said.
