**Discovering Vampire Power: How to Save Energy with Your Computer Peripherals**

As technology advances, our computers and peripherals consume more power than ever before, even when turned off or in standby mode. This phenomenon is known as "vampire power" or "standby power." In this article, we'll explore the concept of vampire power, how it affects your energy consumption, and some practical tips on how to reduce it.

**Measuring Power Consumption**

To understand vampire power, I used a PC UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) that can attach to my computer via a USB port. The software that comes with the UPS provides detailed information about the power consumed by various peripherals attached to it. By monitoring this data, I was able to determine the approximate power consumption of each device.

**Testing Vampire Power Devices**

I started by testing one of my devices, an Altec Lansing zero-to-one speaker. When powered on, it consumes around 26 watts of power, while in standby mode, it still consumes 20 watts. This is a significant amount of energy wasted, especially considering that this device was always plugged into the power socket for approximately 24 hours a day.

Next, I tested my Yeti mic, which typically consumes around 6 watts of power when connected to my computer via USB. However, since I only use it about 5% of the time, I've started unplugging it when not in use to save energy. Another device that consumed a significant amount of power was my Dell monitor, which guzzles around 30 watts of power. Similarly, my Wi-Fi router consumes approximately 6 watts of power.

**Reducing Vampire Power**

To mitigate vampire power, I invested in a separate power strip and connected devices like speakers, external hard drives, and other peripherals to it. Before shutting down my computer or putting it to sleep, I switch off the power strip. This simple trick helps reduce energy consumption by turning off unnecessary devices.

**Setting Up Power Schemes**

To further optimize power consumption on my computer, I set up the power schemes on both my Mac and Windows 7 PC. On my Mac, I went to System Preferences > Energy Saver and adjusted the settings to put the monitor to sleep after 5 minutes and automatically turn off the computer after 20 minutes. On my Windows 7 PC, I used the Start menu to type "power" and selected the Power Options, then changed the plan settings to set the monitor to sleep after 5 minutes and put the computer to sleep using the drop-down box.

**Going Green**

As an energy-conscious individual, I've made a conscious effort to reduce my environmental impact. Over the past year, I've purchased new gadgets that consume approximately 80% less power than my previous devices. These eco-friendly alternatives have helped me minimize my carbon footprint and contribute to a more sustainable future.

**Conclusion**

Vampire power is a significant contributor to our energy consumption, especially when we're not actively using our computers or peripherals. By understanding the devices that consume the most energy and implementing simple measures like turning off unnecessary devices and adjusting power schemes, we can make a positive impact on our environment. Remember to always be mindful of your energy consumption, and don't hesitate to explore more eco-friendly alternatives for your computing needs.

**Tips and Suggestions**

If you have any suggestions or tips about green computing and reducing vampire power, please share them in the comments below. What devices do you think consume the most energy? How do you save power while using your computers? Your input is valuable, and I'd love to hear from you.

**Subscribe to My Channel**

If you found this article helpful, be sure to subscribe to my channel for more informative content on technology, sustainability, and green computing. You can also like the video below if you think it was informative and entertaining.

**References**

* "Vampire Power: The Hidden Energy Drain" by [Author]

* "How to Reduce Vampire Power on Your Computer" by [Source]

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi there this is Ranjit from tech tubers calm and in this video I'm going to talk about being green with your computing the thing is that we rely on our computers every day and sadly still computers consume a lot of power a typical PC a very even a very efficient PC might consume 100 watts of power and an average PC might consume about 200 watts of power and just multiply this number with the number of hours a typical PC runs that's about 8 to 10 hours we are talking about a lot of energy usage and in this video I am going to show you how to lower your energy costs by using your computer this by doing that going a little bit green you can also save some money and by doing by following some simple procedures you do not have to sacrifice anything you will be doing your non computing but you'll be saving power so the first thing that you can do easily is that whenever you are planning to just go out let's say you have a meeting or you are just going out for a lunch you might not be using a computer for just about an hour or two the best thing you can do is just instead of just letting the computer run use the sleep mode in the computer if you compare is just about even 3 or 4 years old most of the modern computers have this steep functionality that works great under windows and mac os/x the beauty with sleep is that the system goes into a very low-power state it hardly consumes any power less than 5 watts of power and when you want to resume you just hit a space bar on a keyboard and your system bounces back to the state it was earlier you do not lose any work the windows will be exactly where it were so sleep is a very efficient way to save power I normally do not close my computers at night when I'm finished with my work I generally put them to sleep and in the morning when I come and just hit the space bar the computer is just bounces within 4 or 5 seconds to the state it was so sleep is one tip that you can use in if you're using a Windows computer there is also option cause hibernate which actually shuts down the entire computer it's not as fast asleep but give that a try I'll show you both options that's for the Mac and for the windows the power options that you can say shortly another major thing that I've found out with the computers is that a lot of devices computing devices that we use consume a lot of vampire power whenever there's even when the standby mode they consume a lot of power and I have just I was shocked to see some of the results with some of the peripherals that I was using and how much amount of power they were consuming even when they were in the standby or the off state I've got a PC UPS that can be attached to the computer and it gives the reading of how much wattage is being exactly used by the computer so I played around with that and I'll show you some of the results that will shock you this is the a PC software that comes with my UPS and it gets attached to the computer whai USB port and as you can see it gives us a lot of information particularly have a look at the lower part below the graph it exactly shows us how much power has been consumed for the peripherals attached to the UPS right now it's showing us as 114 watts of power and it keeps fluctuating whenever I add devices or remove devices so I played around with a couple of devices to determine approximately how much watts of power they were using and these are some of the results that I have found out okay this is my Altec Lansing zero to one speaker and this is the control power for the same you can switch it on or off using this I determined that this speaker was consuming approximately 26 watts of power when in the on states that's not a problem but right I used to just switch it off using the port and I used to switch it off like this and even in this state it was consuming 20 watts of power which is insane because this was directly then approximately 24 hours all the time to the power socket and that's a lot of vampire power according to me the next thing is this is my Yeti mic which I used for podcasting and recording all the audio and when this is plug name to the computer's USB port this consumes approximately 6 watts of power and the thing is that I must be using this just approximately about 5% of the time so I nowadays just plug it off when I am not using and that's safe power to do this what are - I have just purchased this cheap USB connector and whenever I want to plug in some device I just plug it in here easily using this cable and whenever I'm done with that I just remove that hence I save power using the simple method other things that I found interesting was that my Dell monitor that's this that I use these days consumes about 30 watts of power that's not a pretty efficient my Wi-Fi router consumes approximately 6 watts of power to save on power for external devices like speakers or external hard drives what have done is now that I have purchased a separate power strip and connected those device to the power strip and before so etching of the computer or putting it to sleep I just switch off that power strip I would love to know if you know some other devices that consume a lot of vampire power and some of the ways by which you save power while using your computers I'd love to hear them now I'll show you how to set the power schemes on your computer first I'll show you with the Mac then on a Windows 7 PC for the Mac just go to System Preferences and here you will see this icon that's known as energy saver click on that and here you can set up the Preferences the first thing is for the sleep I have set that I'm here to sleep to sleep automatically after 20 minutes you can just slide the slider to give you a preference and the second option is for the monitor to go to sleep automatically have centered to five minutes you can again slide the slider to set it as you like so this is basically how you set up the energy preference on the Mac now I will show you how to do it on Windows 7 PC in Windows just go to the start option and type in power and here select the power option select the power saver settings and click on the Change plan settings for setting a monitor to go to sleep I've set it to 5 minutes and the second option is to put your computers to sleep use the drop-down box and select that you also can change some Advanced Options by going to this option you have got a ton of options here and to put your Windows 7 system to sleep just go here click on this and here you can use the sleep option I have been always very energy conscious but during the last year I have purchased some new gadgets oh and have replaced my existing gadgets with newer ones which consume approximately eighty percent less power than my previous devices and I'm going to talk about them in my next video but I would love to hear some of your suggestions and tips about green computing and how you save power if you think this video was helpful please click on the like button given below you can subscribe to my channel to be notified about my future videos that's it for now this is Ron G for tech to buzz calm and hopefully I am going to see you in my next video youhi there this is Ranjit from tech tubers calm and in this video I'm going to talk about being green with your computing the thing is that we rely on our computers every day and sadly still computers consume a lot of power a typical PC a very even a very efficient PC might consume 100 watts of power and an average PC might consume about 200 watts of power and just multiply this number with the number of hours a typical PC runs that's about 8 to 10 hours we are talking about a lot of energy usage and in this video I am going to show you how to lower your energy costs by using your computer this by doing that going a little bit green you can also save some money and by doing by following some simple procedures you do not have to sacrifice anything you will be doing your non computing but you'll be saving power so the first thing that you can do easily is that whenever you are planning to just go out let's say you have a meeting or you are just going out for a lunch you might not be using a computer for just about an hour or two the best thing you can do is just instead of just letting the computer run use the sleep mode in the computer if you compare is just about even 3 or 4 years old most of the modern computers have this steep functionality that works great under windows and mac os/x the beauty with sleep is that the system goes into a very low-power state it hardly consumes any power less than 5 watts of power and when you want to resume you just hit a space bar on a keyboard and your system bounces back to the state it was earlier you do not lose any work the windows will be exactly where it were so sleep is a very efficient way to save power I normally do not close my computers at night when I'm finished with my work I generally put them to sleep and in the morning when I come and just hit the space bar the computer is just bounces within 4 or 5 seconds to the state it was so sleep is one tip that you can use in if you're using a Windows computer there is also option cause hibernate which actually shuts down the entire computer it's not as fast asleep but give that a try I'll show you both options that's for the Mac and for the windows the power options that you can say shortly another major thing that I've found out with the computers is that a lot of devices computing devices that we use consume a lot of vampire power whenever there's even when the standby mode they consume a lot of power and I have just I was shocked to see some of the results with some of the peripherals that I was using and how much amount of power they were consuming even when they were in the standby or the off state I've got a PC UPS that can be attached to the computer and it gives the reading of how much wattage is being exactly used by the computer so I played around with that and I'll show you some of the results that will shock you this is the a PC software that comes with my UPS and it gets attached to the computer whai USB port and as you can see it gives us a lot of information particularly have a look at the lower part below the graph it exactly shows us how much power has been consumed for the peripherals attached to the UPS right now it's showing us as 114 watts of power and it keeps fluctuating whenever I add devices or remove devices so I played around with a couple of devices to determine approximately how much watts of power they were using and these are some of the results that I have found out okay this is my Altec Lansing zero to one speaker and this is the control power for the same you can switch it on or off using this I determined that this speaker was consuming approximately 26 watts of power when in the on states that's not a problem but right I used to just switch it off using the port and I used to switch it off like this and even in this state it was consuming 20 watts of power which is insane because this was directly then approximately 24 hours all the time to the power socket and that's a lot of vampire power according to me the next thing is this is my Yeti mic which I used for podcasting and recording all the audio and when this is plug name to the computer's USB port this consumes approximately 6 watts of power and the thing is that I must be using this just approximately about 5% of the time so I nowadays just plug it off when I am not using and that's safe power to do this what are - I have just purchased this cheap USB connector and whenever I want to plug in some device I just plug it in here easily using this cable and whenever I'm done with that I just remove that hence I save power using the simple method other things that I found interesting was that my Dell monitor that's this that I use these days consumes about 30 watts of power that's not a pretty efficient my Wi-Fi router consumes approximately 6 watts of power to save on power for external devices like speakers or external hard drives what have done is now that I have purchased a separate power strip and connected those device to the power strip and before so etching of the computer or putting it to sleep I just switch off that power strip I would love to know if you know some other devices that consume a lot of vampire power and some of the ways by which you save power while using your computers I'd love to hear them now I'll show you how to set the power schemes on your computer first I'll show you with the Mac then on a Windows 7 PC for the Mac just go to System Preferences and here you will see this icon that's known as energy saver click on that and here you can set up the Preferences the first thing is for the sleep I have set that I'm here to sleep to sleep automatically after 20 minutes you can just slide the slider to give you a preference and the second option is for the monitor to go to sleep automatically have centered to five minutes you can again slide the slider to set it as you like so this is basically how you set up the energy preference on the Mac now I will show you how to do it on Windows 7 PC in Windows just go to the start option and type in power and here select the power option select the power saver settings and click on the Change plan settings for setting a monitor to go to sleep I've set it to 5 minutes and the second option is to put your computers to sleep use the drop-down box and select that you also can change some Advanced Options by going to this option you have got a ton of options here and to put your Windows 7 system to sleep just go here click on this and here you can use the sleep option I have been always very energy conscious but during the last year I have purchased some new gadgets oh and have replaced my existing gadgets with newer ones which consume approximately eighty percent less power than my previous devices and I'm going to talk about them in my next video but I would love to hear some of your suggestions and tips about green computing and how you save power if you think this video was helpful please click on the like button given below you can subscribe to my channel to be notified about my future videos that's it for now this is Ron G for tech to buzz calm and hopefully I am going to see you in my next video you\n"