If this is XP you right click on the desktop, click Properties, click Screen saver then drop the menu down and select 'None'. Click Save, click OK. Done.

Don't expect to see significant savings on your energy bill. First, computers use relatively little energy, and second, the switch you are talking about is a very minimal change. I'm guessing it might save you a couple of bucks a year.

OK, owbist, I selected "none" for screen saver.

But don't I also have to choose something (Never, 15 min, 30 min, etc.) for either or both of the two settings?

"Turn off monitor/Turn off hard disks"

or

"System standby/System hibernate"

Wow, kudzu, I thought computers were one of the big electric hogs. Is it TV then? Definitely AC or heat, right? And incandescent lighting?

here are some links that may be helpful
Configure Windows XP power management

Adjust Windows XP Power Options

Almost any appliance which has an "instant on" feature or a clock uses some energy when it is plugged in, even if it is turned off. Yes, even your cell phone charger should be unplugged from the wall outlet when not in use. All these little things added together do cost. Individually, no, but collectively, yes.

hobby_libby-
The average computer may typically use about as much energy as a 100 watt bulb...more if it's really high-powered, less if not, and you'll generally use less overall if you are talking about a laptap rather than a traditional computer with stand alone monitor. An LCD monitor fully on (or with a screensaver) might use about 50 watts. So if your computer and an LCD monitor are fully on 10 hours a day, you're talking about using 1.5 kWhr. The cost for a single kWhr is maybe 10-15 cents in many parts of the country, so your total energy cost to have a computer and monitor on for 10 hours a day might be about 20 cents.

Now if you decide to have no screensaver AND have it go into sleepmode when you are not using it, you could save at least 15 cents a day, or maybe $50 a year...if you have air conditioning going year-round. However, during the heating months, the heat energy thrown off by the computer goes to heat your home and the furnace has to provide a little less heat, so you get little benefit there. And, of course if you actually have the computer in use, then your savings will be proportionally less. Bottomline: if you put your computer in sleep mode, with the screen off, and you don't use the computer much, you'll save enough each month to buy one extra latte at Starbucks.

Don't get me wrong. Saving energy and money is a good thing, and I'm not trying to discourage you. I was just making the point that you are not going to see the massive savings you might have expected.

If you want to understand where the electricity really gets eaten up in your home, and how to conserve so you can reduce your bill in a noticeable way, check out the link below. At the bottom of the linked page there is lots of good info on things you can do, and how much different things in your home account for in the overall energy picture.

Here is a link that might be useful: Electric use

My desktop online 24/7 with monitor blanked, and hard drive on spin down, cost me $10.50 us per month doing extreme light duty as a lan server. That was maybe 3 yrs ago I measured its power for a month. Price is up for power costs since then.

If that computer only ran when needed... less than $1.00 per month im sure in power. Its offline now. A laptop running 24/7 cost me $2.50 per month in power.

mikie-
Interesting real world info...thanks.

Click here if you wish to calculate the power use on your computer.

raven, thanks for the link.

But in the Control Panel, there was no Performance & Maintenance choice, just Power Options Properties.

And what I should have stated to begin with is: Turn off monitor/Turn off hard disks vs System standby/System hibernates confuses me. Aren't these practically the same thing?

So, I just hope I chose the right settings:
Turn off monitor/15 min, Turn off hard disks/never (Uh, they turn off during hibernation.)
System standby/30 min & System hibernates 1 hr.

I may have to adjust these later.

Under the Hibernate tab, I believe there was already a check in the Enable hibernation box. I don't think I ever touched this.

And on the Advanced tab there's a choice for "When I press the sleep button on my computer... Hibernate". Again, that was already chosen, I think. But I have no clue as to what or where a sleep button is.

But all in all, the power usage/electric cost is interesting, thanks!

Hibernate basically writes all things to a file on your hard drive and shuts off the power. When you restart the computer, it populates the desktop and browser and other programs that were running to exact same state as it was when it entered hibernate - takes a while for of course everything to start and get rewritten from the hard drive into memory. Saves 100% power.

Standby ... writes everything to memory and holds it there ... and shuts down the computer. Standby generally leaves a small current applied to the memory to hold the items in memory ... which it rewrites on start up.. Standby starts up faster than hibernate .. much faster as memory is nearly instant on - super fast stuff as opposed to hard drives which are mechanical spinning disks that the data needs to be pulled off and written to memory and processed.

Something like that.. all kinds of little difference on computer hardware .... but mostly its only a tiny current consumption to hold things in memory on standby. No current at all on hibernate excpt for maybe the monitor keep warm circuit of 5 watts or so.

here is a neat little program that is free that might be of assistance
SetPower Free

Thanks for everyone's help & all the info!