Not everyone can afford to install solar panels or get a new Prius this Earth Day, but there is one place you can go green without spending an arm and a leg or radically changing your lifestyle: your computer. Chances are you spend the majority of your day sitting in front of the keyboard, and a few small changes can go a long way toward reducing its negative impact on the environment. As an added bonus, doing your part for the environment will save you money, too. This Earth Day, we’ve rounded up a few simple ways you can go green with your computer.

Obviously, computers require electricity to run, so shutting down, sleeping, or hibernating your computer when you’re not using it conserves energy. Every modern operating system has its own settings for conserving power, so the first thing you should do—if you haven’t already—is open the power settings of your computer and set them for optimal energy use

Set your computer to put your monitor to sleep, spin down your hard drives, and put your computer to sleep when you’re not using it. Even better, since your computer uses less power when hibernating than when sleeping, set up your computer to hibernate rather than just go to sleep.

One of the biggest turn-offs (no pun intended) about shutting down or sleeping your computer is that you miss out on some of the finer things your computer provides even when you’re away. For example, if you’re downloading a large file, you may want the download to continue even when you’re away. Likewise, we’ve covered tons of ways to remotely access your computer, all of which no longer work if your computer’s turned off. Luckily you can continue using your computer during these times but still conserve power the rest of the time.

These are just a few of the many ways you might go about living the green life on your desktop. If you’ve got methods of your own, let’s hear about ‘em in the comments.

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green360 by a curious ion