Dell Launches Vostro 410 Green PC

Dell has launched its latest Vostro PC for small businesses called the Vostro Energy Smart 410 Desktop. Dell claims the little PC saves up to 47% in annual energy costs. The little machine starts at $599 and is available today in North and South America as well as the UK.

Dell will roll the machine out in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa in early June. The machine has a larger tower and can accommodate up to 3TB of local storage and memory. The system has six expansion slots and available Intel Core 2 Quad processors and 512MB graphics cards and more.

"Small businesses are increasingly concerned about rising energy costs," said Frank Muehleman, vice president and general manager, Dell Small and Medium Business."

"With the Energy Smart Vostro desktop, we're able to save our customers money and collectively cut down on CO2 emissions, while delivering the features and functionality they require - especially high-performance processing power, graphics technology, fast networking and maximum expandability."

Source:i4u.com/article17672.html
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Local system builders invited to build green PC

Local system builders are being invited to demonstrate their green computing skills - with the winner set to drive away in a Toyota Prius.

The 'Build a Green PC' competition has been launched by PC hardware vendors, Gigabyte and Western Digital. Intel is also cooperating on the initiative, which is open until June 16.

Gigabyte Australia managing director, Alan Chen, said the environmental impact of components was a major focus for the vendor's Australian business.

"With the government regulations, IT vendors need to find green PC solutions to stay in business as soon as possible," he said, "We're also using road shows, events and email campaigns to try and educate our distributors and resellers."

Western Digital territory manager, Eric Chan, said environmental awareness was rapidly improving in Australia, and demand for green products had been rapidly increasing since late last year.

Intel area sales manager, Thomas Tapsas, said the chipmaker was supporting the initiative because it fitted within its broader green messaging.

"It's about time we got awareness out there - we want to be involved with as many of these educational campaigns for our system builder community as possible," he said.

The competition fits within Intel's support of Climate Servers Computing, a global organisation started by Google and Intel, and supported by Energy Star, designed to improve power efficiency in computing.

Intel A/NZ business development manager, Sean Casey, said energy efficiency in motherboards and components was becoming a major focus of Climate Servers Computing.

"We want to raise awareness and communicate with both businesses and consumers on the importance of energy efficient components," Casey said.

Source:arnnet.com.au/index.php/id;1030718143;fp;4194304;fpid;1
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Dell’s New Environmentally Friendly Green PC

Dell has gone a step further this year and created a green computer unlike any other Dell has ever had.

This year at the Fortune Brainstorm Green Conference, Dell CEO Michael Dell introduced Dell's new green PC. The new Dell green PC is a bamboo-coated computer filled with recycled materials (ex. recycled plastics such as: milk jugs, laundry detergent bottles). The Bamboo-computer uses 70% less energy than the average computer and is 81 percent smaller than the standard desktop. The size makes it easier, less costly and more eco-friendly to ship.

What is the estimated cost of this computer? The estimated cost is about $500-$700. Unfortunately, other than the above information there is little else known about this computer. The computer's name has not been released nor have any further details of the computer capabilities. Don't worry though, the Bamboo computer is set to come out later this year. Stay tuned.

If you are a Dell customer or fan and you are wondering what other environmentally friendly initiatives Dell has taken you will be surprised at what they've done and plan to do. Here is a quick list of their recent eco-efforts:

a. Plant a tree program. Take a look here .

b. Recycling program . Drop off your old Dell at any dell store and they'll have it recycle. You can even buy a refurbished computer if you would like.

c. 100% Renewable Energy for Dell Headquarters, in Austin Texas. 2.1 million square foot headquarters building in Austin is powered by alternative energy.

Source:inventorspot.com/articles/dells_new_environmentally_friendly_pc_13718
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Local System Builders Invited to Build Green PC

Local system builders are being invited to demonstrate their green computing skills - with the winner set to drive away in a Toyota Prius.

The 'Build a Green PC' competition has been launched by PC hardware vendors, Gigabyte and Western Digital. Intel is also cooperating on the initiative, which is open until June 16.

Gigabyte Australia managing director, Alan Chen, said the environmental impact of components was a major focus for the vendor's Australian business.

"With the government regulations, IT vendors need to find green solutions to stay in business as soon as possible," he said, "We're also using road shows, events and email campaigns to try and educate our distributors and resellers."

Western Digital territory manager, Eric Chan, said environmental awareness was rapidly improving in Australia, and demand for green products had been rapidly increasing since late last year.

Intel area sales manager, Thomas Tapsas, said the chipmaker was supporting the initiative because it fitted within its broader green messaging.

"It's about time we got awareness out there - we want to be involved with as many of these educational campaigns for our system builder community as possible," he said.

The competition fits within Intel's support of Climate Servers Computing, a global organisation started by Google and Intel, and supported by Energy Star, designed to improve power efficiency in computing.

Intel A/NZ business development manager, Sean Casey, said energy efficiency in motherboards and components was becoming a major focus of Climate Servers Computing.

"We want to raise awareness and communicate with both businesses and consumers on the importance of energy efficient components," Casey said.

Source:arnnet.com.au
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Dell Plans Green PC Push

Dell said Wednesday that it plans to cut the combined power of its desktop and notebook PCs by 25 percent in 2010, compared to the current power output of those systems today.

Rival Hewlett-Packard said earlier that it plans to reduce the energy consumption of volume desktop and notebook PC families by 25 percent, relative to 2005. Measured against that standard, Dell's reductions would be 62 percent for its desktops, and 37 percent for its laptops, according to Albert Esser, Dell's vice president of power and infrastructure solutions for its Dell Product Group .

"Overall this one thing we really want to be is driving forward to become the greenest tech company on the planet," Esser said.

The power savings are in part required by Energy Star 5.0, with its significantly toughened regulations on power supplies and the like. But Esser said that Dell will continue to work with vendors to throttle power, both in terms of system design and the sourcing of power-optimized components.

"One, we will first continue to integrate Energy Smart technologies into the product," Esser said, referring to a basket of Dell technologies that includes low-power Intel and AMD processors, aggressively power-managed system settings, and management tools. Those will also include circuit design and internal routing, he said.

"Low-flow fan technology is a significant one," Esser added. 'We don't source the cheapest…fans, but often we choose to work with a vendor to create a custom design." Esser cited Dell's internal 1000e rack-mounted platforms as ones that are more efficient at moving air than competitive offerings.

Beyond that, Dell is the first PC manufacturer to include a bronze-level certified power supply from the 80 PLUS organization, which certifies power supplies at 80 percent efficiency or above. Similarly, Dell is working with vendors of memory and hard drives to optimize those components, too.

"Once you have the best components…you thus go in and try with power management and advanced speed curves and load management," Esser added.

Although Dell has yet to call out the power consumption for a given product on its shopping pages, the company does provide a energy calculator to provide some baseline comparisons on how much power certain Optiplex desktops and Latitude notebooks draw, versus the other.

Dell's other green credentials include its corporate headquarters, whose campus is powered with 100 percent 'green' energy, Dell said. The company has already saved more than $1.2 million and avoided 8,200 tons of carbon dioxide through replacing lights and retrofitting air conditioning units throughout central Texas facilities.

Source:pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2305095,00.asp
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GIGABYTE Launches Energy Saver G31 Series Motherboards in India

GIGABYTE United Inc. has launched in India the G31 Series of motherboards based on the Intel G31 chipset. These motherboards use the GIGABYTE Dynamic Energy Saver technology and deliver power savings and better power efficiency to computers. Two models will be available in this series, the GA-EG31M-S2 and the GA-EG31MF-S2.

"GIGABYTE Dynamic Energy Saver Series Motherboards are able to provide exceptional power savings of up to 70% improved power and energy efficiency without sacrificing computing performance, our entry model GA-EG31M-S2 is DES compliant," said Rajan Sharma, General Manager, MB and VGA BU, GIGABYTE India.

The EG31M-S2 Series has the Ultra Durable2 design for its CPU VRM (Voltage Regulator Module). This ensures better cooling, lower power loss and longer lifespan for computers in daily operation, and boosts system stability even under extreme conditions.

The motherboards from the G31 Series are compatible with high-end processors including Intel Core 2 multi-core and 45 nm processors.

The G31 Series comes equipped with a dual Channel DDR2 800 memory, which gives superior performance to the most demanding applications on one's PC. It also has the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 that supports Microsoft DirectX 9.0 and Windows Vista Aero experience, which improves realism and delivers excellent graphics performance.

Armed with the SATA specification, the bus bandwidth of the G31 Series is now doubled from 1.5 Gbps to 3 Gbps. The Native Command Queuing specification enables out-of-order execution of commands for efficient retrieval of data.

The Gigabit network interface delivers a high-speed LAN connection with data transfer rates up to 1000 Mbps. Also supported is the IEEE1394 FireWire interface from Texas Instruments (TI). With transfer speeds of up to 400 Mbps, this interface enhances PC connectivity with consumer electronics audio/video (A/V) appliances, and storage peripherals.

The GIGABYTE GA-EG31M-S2 is priced at Rs. 5500/-, while the GIGABYTE GA-EG31MF-S2 is priced at Rs. 6000/-. The motherboards are distributed in India by Avnet (India), Ingram Micro, Redington.

Dynamic Energy Saver compliant motherboards are also available in discreet models like P31/P35/X38/X48 through all GIGABYTE distributors and premium partners.

source:itnewsonline.com/showstory.php?storyid=12494&scatid=3&contid=1
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Where can I find a 'green' computer?

Q: My old computer finally bit the dust and I am in the market for a replacement. Are there any particularly "green" computers for sale these days?

– Brian Smith, Nashua, N.H.

A:Thanks in part to pressure from non­profits like Greenpeace International – which has published quarterly versions of its landmark "Guide to Greener Electronics" since 2006 – computermakers now understand that consumers care about the environmental footprints of the products they use.

The latest version of Greenpeace's guide gives high marks to Toshiba, Lenovo, Sony, and Dell for increasing the recyclability of their computers and redu­cing toxic components and so-called "e-waste" (refuse from discarded electronic devices and components). The group also credits Apple, HP, and Fujitsu for making strides toward greener products and manufacturing processes, but adds that even top-ranked companies have lots of room for improvement on the environment.

PC Magazine recently assessed dozens of personal computers according to environmental standards it developed in-house based on energy efficiency, recyclability, and the toxicity of components. The publication also factored in various "green" certification schemes such as the US Environmental Protection Agency's Energy­­Star program, the European Union's Restriction of Haz­ardous Sub­stances directive, Taiwan's Green­mark, and the computer industry's own Electronic Products Environmental Asses­­sment Tool.

The top choices for green desktop computers, according to PC, are:

•Apple's Mac Mini

•Zonbu's Desktop Mini,

•HP Compaq's 2710p and dc7800

•Lenovo's ThinkCentre a61e

•Dell's OptiPlex 755

As for laptops, the greenest current models include:

•Dell's Latitude D630

•Everex Zonbu

•Fujitsu's LifeBook S6510

•Toshiba's Tecra A9-S9013

For green PC support call on 1-800-237-3901

Source: csmonitor.com/2008/0430/p14s01-sten.html
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Put your PC to sleep to go green

The quiet box on your desk or in the living room, that thing that helps you work and buy airline tickets and watch funny clips on YouTube — it's also burning fossil fuels.

The tools to slow the power flow are right inside it, accessible with a few mouse clicks. Pay nothing; give nothing up. Yet most of us never make the fix.

To change that, Intel and Google founded the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. In their sights: Your computer, your kid's computer, your sister's ... all 1 billion PCs worldwide. The technology giants want computers to go to sleep, and consume less energy, when we're not using them.

Compared with the thirstiest appliances — refrigerators, clothes dryers, microwave ovens — computers are energy sippers. But the sips add up. If Climate Savers reaches its goal of whacking in half the amount of power consumed each year by the world's computers, the resulting drop in carbon dioxide emissions will be equivalent to removing 11 million cars from the road, the campaign predicts.

Government studies have estimated that power management tools, standard on most computers, aren't active on 90 percent of desktop PCs. For individual users of PCs or Macs, turning on the tools requires a few minutes of fiddling with your power settings (after checking with the office technology manager). It's more complicated, but doable, for businesses with hundreds or thousands of machines.

Why don't we turn it on?

We don't think about it.

The computer industry historically has emphasized performance and price over energy efficiency. Dileep Bhandarkar, an Intel engineer, estimates efficiency-rated computers make up only 20 percent of the computer market — a share new industry and government efforts aim to increase.

Times have changed, Bhandarkar says. Newer operating systems with better power management mean users wait just seconds for computers to wake from hibernation. Some systems still won't allow you to temporarily sever your computer's network connections, but you can save energy and money by activating sleep mode on the monitor and hard drive alone.

Source:twincities.com/ci_9158597
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How to manage e-waste

At the end of the road of fast paced technological innovations lies heaps of electronic carcasses which cause severe contamination of air with hazardous toxic substances like lead, cadmium, mercury and carcinogenic substances

When old computers laptops, mobile phones, MP3 players and TV sets near the end of their useful life, we easily dump them in the warehouse or give them away to a kabadi at a dirt cheap price, not realizing our contribution to the grave menace of e-waste.

Electrical and electronic equipments are made up of a multitude of components, some containing toxic substances which can have an adverse impact on human health and the environment if not handled properly. Often, these hazards arise due to the improper recycling and disposal processes used.

When thrown away carelessly, electronic products end up in landfills or incinerators, or are recycled in environmentally harmful ways, leading to the severe contamination of air with hazardous toxic substances like lead, cadmium and mercury and carcinogenic substances like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

The burgeoning problem of landfills inundated with abandoned high-tech electronic appliances is a source of growing concern among corporate enterprises, governments and environmental groups around the globe.

With the rapid technology change, low initial cost and even planned obsolescence, the amount of ewaste is estimated to grow fourfold in the next few years.

In India the problem is more acute as we not only generate a large quantity of e-waste locally but we also serve as a dumping ground for e-waste from other countries. It is estimated that approximately 1 million units of e-waste were brought into India last year.

So far preliminary estimates suggest that total e- waste generation in India is approximately 1, 46,000 tons per year. Moreover, the methods adopted for processing the e-waste involve uncontrolled burning, disassembly and disposal causing environmental and health problems, including occupational safety and health effects.

Proper treatment of e-waste is the need of the day. If recycled appropriately a lot of reusable valuable substances can be extracted from it.

Advanced technology has indeed tremendous fruits to reap but leaves at the fag end the sour taste of electronic scrap resulting from the sheer negligence on the path of the users. We can either adopt the more practical solution of reusing our appliances or perhaps recycling them suitably.

Source:TOI
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Snogard Reacts to Interest in Green IT

Snogard are launching 3 new energy saving green PC in their ECO LINE range onto the market. The manufacturer is answering the increasing interest that people have in computers which have reduced energy needs. The company from Frechen (Germany) has called these computers the ECO 4050e, ECO 4450e and ECO 4850e. Adjustments were made to the power supply and the CPU to enable these to run with less energy. These PCs have the newest energy saving processors made by AMD. Even when in heavy use, the processors only need 45W, regardless of whether the user is working or playing computer games.

Power supplies use between 385 and 425W, which doesn’t actually sound very energy efficient. The new range of power supplies from Enermax provides an 84 to 88 percent efficiency when being used at over 20 percent capacity. Because of this, the power supply complies with the 82+ efficiency class and the ENERGY STAR 4.0 seal of approval, as well of those of Blauer Engel (German standard) and 80 Plus. Another advantage is that the mains adapters are especially quiet. Users needn’t worry about a loss of performance due to this increased efficiency.

According to the manufacturer, the ECOLINE PC series is equipped with hard drives of between 250 and 750GB memory for storing data. A DVD burner is also on board, as well as a 2048MB RAM. The AMD Athlon X2 processors provide a frequency of between 2.1 and 2.5GHz.

Source:news.idealo.co.uk/
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Dell Going Green, Unveils Bamboo PC

Earth Day has come and gone, but that doesn't mean we can't continue to think green when it comes to consumer electronics. At a recent FORTUNE Brainstorm: GREEN conference, Dell's CEO Michael Dell challenged every technology company to make the environment both a business priority and daily conversation. He then took the opportunity to announce Dell's greenest PC.

The unnamed mini-desktop is the smallest, and most eco-friendly consumer desktop the company has yet to released. Earth2Tech has a few pictures of the bamboo covered PC, which is said to be 80 percent smaller than a standard mini-tower desktop, and 70 percent less energy-consuming too. No idea if the bamboo casing is just on the prototype, but I'm hoping they all come looking like that out of the box.

The company said the green PC will be shipped in recycled and recyclable packaging when it goes on sale later this year. Pricing hasn't been announced, but is likely to range between $500 and $700.

This is not Dell's first eco-friendly computer. Last year, the company released its first consumer desktop, the Inspiron 531, with Energy Star 4.0 specifications, as well as Dell Latitude notebooks and OptiPlex desktops that consume up to 70 percent less energy on average.

There are plenty of green computers out there such as Everex's Green gPC, Apple's iMac and HP's rp5700, which Treehugger say meets EPEAT Gold critieria, so there's no reason to go green and save a few bucks in the process.

Source:tech.yahoo.com/blogs/hughes/27337
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