Mid-State Technical College Turns Off Computers with Faronics Software

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 12/08/09

Mid-State Technical College with four locations in central Wisconsin has acquired Power Save from Faronics to perform PC power management. The college system purchased the product in May 2009 after a month of testing and completed its deployment in September.

The college has about 1,500 computers, which run Windows XP with service pack 3. "Without a third-party tool, it is not very easy to invoke Microsoft's Power Save features across many desktops," said Brad Russell, network administrator. "The [Windows] built-in power save features do not take into account any programs running at the time power save actions take effect. In addition, the built-in power save feature offers no reporting tool to assess the amount of money being saved by invoking the power save features on the desktops."

Russell said the Power Save software, which has been implemented on a large percentage of the desktop machines, turns off the monitor after several minutes of inactivity and places the desktop in a standby state after an even longer time of inactivity.

The college chose Faronics' application, which works on both Windows and Mac OS X machines, because it was already using other products from the company, including Deep Freeze, which prevents users from making changes to a computer's image. Both Power Save and Deep Freeze can be monitored through Faronics' Core Console, which provides a single console for management of workstations on the network. The product also is on a list of recommended software from the state's Focus On Energy. This program provides cash incentives for implementing energy-efficient projects.

Prior to deployment, the college ran the Faronics program in an auditing mode, which generated reports showing the potential cost savings from energy usage if the desktops had gone into some form of a power saving mode. Once the deployment was completed, the reporting continued, to show the estimated cost savings realized. "The amount of money the college has saved in two months of full deployment, in addition to the Focus On Energy incentive program, has more than recovered the amount of money spent on licensing the software," Russell said. "Our ROI was realized within two months of full deployment of the Faronics Power Save software."

To prepare the campus community for the changes to the computers, the IT department sent out several "informational" e-mails to all students and staff explaining the new product, including what power save actions would be taken on the desktop, and how to wake up the desktop. "To date, the response from end users has been positive and well received," Russell said.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • abstract illustration of a glowing AI-themed bar graph on a dark digital background with circuit patterns

    Stanford 2025 AI Index Reveals Surge in Adoption, Investment, and Global Impact as Trust and Regulation Lag Behind

    Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) has released its AI Index Report 2025, measuring AI's diverse impacts over the past year.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Launches Claude for Education

    Anthropic has announced a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

  • lightbulb

    Call for Speakers Now Open for Tech Tactics in Education: Overcoming Roadblocks to Innovation

    The annual virtual conference from the producers of Campus Technology and THE Journal will return on September 25, 2025, with a focus on emerging trends in cybersecurity, data privacy, AI implementation, IT leadership, building resilience, and more.

  • From Fire TV to Signage Stick: University of Utah's Digital Signage Evolution

    Jake Sorensen, who oversees sponsorship and advertising and Student Media in Auxiliary Business Development at the University of Utah, has navigated the digital signage landscape for nearly 15 years. He was managing hundreds of devices on campus that were incompatible with digital signage requirements and needed a solution that was reliable and lowered labor costs. The Amazon Signage Stick, specifically engineered for digital signage applications, gave him the stability and design functionality the University of Utah needed, along with the assurance of long-term support.