New computer since July 2010? Power management coming January 11, 2012!
Last revision January 4, 2012 (new implementation dates); created December 6, 2011
Have you put a new Stanford-owned computer on the Earth Sciences network since July of 2010? Read on, because you will be affected!
In the summer of 2010, the School of Earth Sciences rolled out a program
to save energy by enabling
power management
on all Stanford owned,
CRC supported computers
using the "BigFix" management agent.
CRC supported computers have a red barcode inventory sticker like this sample:
Since then, many people in the School have replaced their old computer with a new one. Unfortunately, the network registration and setup procedures do not automatically enable power management. So the proportion of our computers saving energy has been gradually declining.
CRC is changing their procedures to make sure that they check new computer installations for supported computers and enable appropriate power management settings.
Now, we need to "catch up" and get power management going on the approximately 100 new computers setup in the School during the last year.
On Wednesday, January 11, 2012, CRC will enable Bigfix power management at the Stanford Yellow setting on all Stanford-owned computers that they support which do not already have power management. This setting puts the monitor to sleep after 15 minues of inactivity, but leaves the CPU and hard disk alone so programs keep running without interruption.
You are encouraged to take action to save even more energy on your computer by specifically selecting the Stanford Green setting that also puts your CPU and hard disk to sleep when inactive. Or you can opt-out of this program altogether with the Stanford Red setting.
To make it easy for you to pick the right power management setting
on a new Stanford-owned computer, CRC has created a BigFix "offer"
that is being sent to all computers in Earth Sciences that run BigFix
(anything registered on our network), but do not yet have any power
management setting. This offer appears as an icon with a blue circle
and center dot, as shown to the right:
On Windows, the BigFix offer icon appears on the bottom right side of the screen by the clock. On Macs, it appears at the top right side of the screen by the clock. If you see it, click on it, and select the power management setting appropriate to your computer. The offer will expire on January 10, 2012. After that, CRC-supported computers with no selection are automatically set to the Stanford Yellow power management level.
Alternatively, you can select or change a BigFix power management setting at any time on any computer in Earth Sciences, new or old, by downloading and running the tool described in the BigFix power management FAQ.
Any questions or concerns? Contact the School's IT Manager, Phil Farrell.