If you want an energy efficient computer, then Windows 7 can help you out. You can make Windows 7 generate an energy report so that you can make changes to your computer helping it reduce energy consumption. Here is how to generate an energy report in Windows 7 :
- Open an elevated command prompt window. You can read here how to do so.
- In the command prompt window, type the following command and hit Enter
powercfg -energy
- Windows 7 will observe the energy consumption behavior of your computer for 60 seconds. After 60 seconds, it will tell you how many error, warnings and informationals it finds. It will tell you that it has generated a report and you can open it from C:WindowsSystem32energy-report.html.
- Type the following command in the same command prompt window and hit Enter to open the report file :
start %windir%System32energy-report.html
- You will see the generated energy report open in a browser window.
You can go through each of the errors and try to find a resolution for each of them to reduce the power consumption. For example, in my computer the hadrware driver for the High Definition Audio was making request not to go in sleep mode. This is because I was playing music at the time of generating the report. When I re-generated the energy report after stopping WinAmp music player, this error disappeared.