Three Way News

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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

I was unaware of this problem

And Jerjo (and any other anti-snob 3WN readers) knows why. By the way, this was in a NYT article about power use by household appliances, not some anti-Microsoft site.

When I first installed Vista on my PC, I configured it to go to sleep after 30 minutes, but it has been unreliable. Sometimes it fails to go to sleep, and at other times it fails to wake up. Sometimes I experience the worst of both worlds: the drives and fan are spinning, but the monitor is blank, and I cannot get the machine to come back to life without powering it down and turning it back on.
I spent numerous hours trying to fix the problem, including updating the BIOS, installing up-to-date versions of all my device drivers, checking to make sure there were no unnecessary applications running in the background and, of course, scanning for spyware and viruses. The results were encouraging. After all that fiddling, the machine went to sleep most nights and woke up most — but not all —mornings.
I then installed Co2 Saver (co2saver.snap.com), a free program for Windows XP and Vista that seems to have solved the problem. It gives you a simple control panel to specify when to turn off monitors and disk drives and put the machine to sleep.

I love it, they launch a huge new OS and people have to download third party software just to get the computer sleep mode to work. [There is no mention of Macs and their power use until the 2nd to last paragraph and I just didn't have the heart to excerpt it. Poor Jerjo has enough stress in his life already.]

Labels: computers, Energy, Mac, Vista

8 Comments:

It's a given that Vista is a piece of shit but this is certainly a new wrinkle.

And Jambo, iTunes is still the worst media player on the market for PCs...

By Jerjo/Carjo, at 8:02 AM

That's like saying Blaubunkt is the worst car stereo on the market for Ford Pintos.

By Jambo, at 1:04 PM

Ooh! I love to say "Blaupunkt!"

By Nerdie McSweatervest, at 3:11 PM

I phrased it that way because I knew if I didn't say "on PCs" you'd give me that "it works perfectly fine on my laptop." As a media player and a CD burning program, iTunes sucks, bites, and blows. Winamp, Nero, WMP all own it.

Oh, and 1982 called, they want your reference to Blaupunkt back.

By Jerjo/Carjo, at 5:52 PM

On a B&O or a Close-n-play your Rush is still going to sound exactly the same. Lame.

Oh, and 1998 called, they want your "they want your reference back" back.

By Jambo, at 11:08 PM

I don't accept criticism of my taste in music from a man who didn't "get" Exile on Main Street. What's next, your thumbs down on Dark Side of the Moon?

By Jerjo/Carjo, at 8:44 AM

I tend to be a late night kind of guy so maybe Pink Floyd should be on my computer since it might help me get to sleep a little earlier.

By Jambo, at 10:56 AM

Listening to Pink Floyd requires good old-fashioned blotter acid, not Ambien!

By Jerjo/Carjo, at 11:48 AM