Which option you select to turn on on your computer depends in part on your needs. The highest energy saving comes from reducing energy consumption by the monitor. This option also is the least disruptive, in that if you are sharing directories from your computer over the network, they will continue to be accessible to your peers even after the monitor enters the low consumption mode. If you set your CPU unit, including the hard disk, to enter low consumption mode after a time of inactivity, your computer will not be accessible by others on the network.

One other consideration is what impact the low power mode of the CPU unit might have on your open files, network connections, and programs which may be running. We have not encountered any problems so far when we tested the low power mode on Dell computers here at UNH, but Dell Computer Corporation does not support the low power mode because they have had reports of problems. For this reason, we recommend only turning on the energy saving features of the monitor.

You can turn on the energy saving feature of the monitor in the Control Panels of your Windows 95 operating system, without turning on the energy saving feature of the CPU unit.