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how much electricity does my pc use?
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Senior Member
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15. June 2005 @ 09:06 |
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ok here is my problem, i leave my pc on all day and all night.
lately my girlfriend is complaining about the electricity bil and of course blames it on me having the pc on always.
the only thing is that when she goes out to work she always leaves about 3 or 4 lights on in the house and ofcourse i tell her that is what is causing the higher electricity bill.
while an obvious answer is to turn the lights and the pc off when we go out, i don't have a problem paying more for the electricity than she does to be able to leave the pc on all the time. I do however have a problem with paying more for the bill than she does just so she dosent have to remember to turn the lights off all the time.
so i would really like to know is does 3 / 4 house lights or a pc use more electricity?
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent...
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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ddp
Moderator
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15. June 2005 @ 09:34 |
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what is the wattage of the computer & what is the total wattage of the lights left on. multiply the # of hrs left on.
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Senior Member
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15. June 2005 @ 12:42 |
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ok i think that means my pc uses more.
i got 450watt psu and the bulbs are all between 60 and 100 watt.
but the pc is on 24/7 so it looks like i lose this one :)
any idea roughly how much extra this is adding to my bill? (the pc)
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent...
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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ddp
Moderator
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15. June 2005 @ 12:47 |
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what is the price per kilowatt hours in your area as i'm in canada
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Senior Member
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15. June 2005 @ 14:09 |
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i'd have to check my bill for that.
ill find out tomorow cus its time for me to sleep now :)
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent...
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Senior Member
1 product review
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17. June 2005 @ 23:12 |
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The price for electricity is different at different times of the year. You are billed by Kilowathours. In other words how many thousand watts you use in an hour. I am in the US so those are the prices I am going to give you. here is how it breaks down for you
You have a 450 watt power supply
in 24 hours you use 10800 watts
in a 30 day month you use 324000 watts
This means you use 324 killowatthours a month to leave the computer on all the time for 30 days.
The average cost per kilowatt hour is 7 cents. Sound cheap? watch this.
324 X .07 =$22.68 Now for a year $272.16. 7 cents adds up.
Now put that bottom jaw back in your mouth. There is a way to slightly reduce this. (Besides turning it off when not in use) Get a UPS. this works because of the battery. The UPS will draw from the house at much lower watt rating and the computer will draw from the UPS. The battery is in constant use. A UPS job is to buffer the power coming out so it is a nice steady 115 or 110 volts. Not to mention power the computer if the power goes out. The math to figure out how much your computer is drawing from your home when a UPS is hooked up is anyones guess. I guess you could get one of those things you hold up to the wire to see how much current is going through. Like I said slightly lower the cost.
Hope you enjoyed my math lesson.
-Del
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Senior Member
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18. June 2005 @ 05:50 |
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oh man thats bad, especially as i sometimes leave both PC's on and the monitors!
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent...
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Senior Member
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18. June 2005 @ 05:59 |
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ok i just found out i pay about 12p per kwh upto the first 225kwh per quater and 6p per kwh after 225kwh.
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent...
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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ddp
Moderator
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18. June 2005 @ 06:54 |
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turn the monitors off & if not downloading or burning anything than turn off the the computer as i do that all the time for 15yrs & no problems
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Senior Member
1 product review
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18. June 2005 @ 11:06 |
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Quick note on some monitors. Even if you hit the power the button the monitor will still consume power since it is in "Standby" mode. Same thing with some printers and speakers. Also some things in "Standby" consume more power than if they where on. Your best bet it to simply turn off the power strip when not using anything.
-Del
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ddp
Moderator
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18. June 2005 @ 11:18 |
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after windows shuts down my computer, i turn off the power bar as some computers are still powered even when shut off
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baabaa
AfterDawn Addict
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18. June 2005 @ 12:23 |
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Your girlfriend loses, period, stick that to her and tell her to either turn off the lights or lose the hair dryer..............
You will never be pulling as much juice out of the mains as the lights do..........................................................
...............PIO is no go, DMA all the way...............
Beware of the Pixies - they move in over night and turn your life upside down
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Senior Member
1 product review
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18. June 2005 @ 12:41 |
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I like that answer BaaBaa. But it depends if they are incandescent or florescent energy saver bulbs. You would need to run 30 15 watt florescent bulbs to equal a 450 watt power supply or 7.5 60 watt bulbs. So tell you G/F to change all the bulbs to the energy saving ones and only power one. As for the hairdryer who needs one. Makes the hair frizzy anyway. That way you can do whatever you want with the computer. And while she is standing there huffing and tapping her foot at you just tell her it doesnt matter anymore.
Oh yeah in case you haven't caught onto this. When watts is written on a device that is the number of watts in an hour that item will use. Some items do not have their wattage rating on them. They tell you the volts and amps. Well Volts X Amps = Watts. A very rare it just tells you amps and nothing else. In that case in USA assume it uses 120v. This will not give you an exact watt rating but gives an idea. Some appliances use 240v. Now you know all you need to figure out how much things cost to run. To bad they never list power consumption for "standby" mode. They should be required to. Any device that runs off a remote goes into "standby" when it is off. Also devices with buttons you press lightly to turn off and don't really hear any click or very faint click.
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Senior Member
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18. June 2005 @ 13:21 |
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Im going to put in a few energy saving bulbs but not in all rooms because i think the ligh off them can look odd sometimes.
but theres no way my pc is going off every time i go out :)
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent...
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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baabaa
AfterDawn Addict
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19. June 2005 @ 00:53 |
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Tell you what, without going into the fundamental differences between DC power and AC power.
For a one hour period do the following:
Turn off all the lights, leave the PC turned on.
Count what the electricity meter is at before and then after 1 hour.
Then
Turn off the PC and turn on all the lights
Count what the electricity meter is at before and then after 1 hour.
The lowest value will be the winner...............................................
The PC PSU is not running at full load, therefore will not be dissapting 450watts of power, and if it was it would be DC power it would be dissapating and not true AC power......................
...............PIO is no go, DMA all the way...............
Beware of the Pixies - they move in over night and turn your life upside down
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Iceguy
Newbie
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19. June 2005 @ 08:29 |
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Yeah, there is no way you are running your PC with all 400+ watts 24/7.
I think I calculated up my old Dell, it had 4 sticks of RAM, a 9800PRO, an audigy 2, of course a Hard Drive, 2 disk drives, floppy drive, and a P4 2.4ghz. I believe that IF everything was running/being used, it used 320 or so watts total power. That's why I had a 350 watt power supply, I'd never need more than that on that old computer.
Custom Built PC
Case with 7 fans, 480w PSU, Asus K8VSE Deluxe Socket MB, Athlon 64 3400+ Overclocked to 2.53ghz, 1GB PC3200 Corsair DDR RAM @ 422mhz, 9800PRO Overclocked (400/356), Audigy 2 Sound Blaster, 2 80GB Hard Drives, Firewire, and many more irrelevant toys.
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Induna
Junior Member
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21. June 2005 @ 15:37 |
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I was working this out just the other day.
My PC has a 400W PSU full load but I estimate I'm using around 250 Watts with the devices and CPU ect..
250 watts x 24 hours = 6000 Watts or 6 KWh per day.
365 days = 2190 KWh per year.
1 KWh = 6p.
2190 KWh x 6p = £131.40p
Shit, I didn't realise it was so much.
4 lightbulbs at 60W-100W (80W average) = 320 Watts.
So it's costing you around £168 a year if they were kept on for 24 hours. Or £84 for 12 hours a day.
If your PC is using 320 Watts it's about the same as the 4 bulbs on all day and night.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 21. June 2005 @ 17:38
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Induna
Junior Member
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21. June 2005 @ 15:42 |
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 21. June 2005 @ 17:34
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Senior Member
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22. June 2005 @ 02:42 |
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I wonder how many people actually realise how much a pc costs just to run.
It's a lot more than i first thought!
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent...
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Induna
Junior Member
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22. June 2005 @ 04:06 |
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Yeah I know. I was surprised too. I thought it would be about 5p a day, not 36p. Very surprised.
So it works out at £11 a month for me, and that's on top of the NTL broadband of £25.
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nmcbean
Newbie
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22. June 2005 @ 07:28 |
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ok, i was curious about how much my computer cost also so i searched google
this site came up among others which is why i found this site
i found a very informative site:
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.html
bottom line= you all are wrong so far... the MAX the computer can use is 450w.. just because it has that capacity doesn tmean that it uses that much...
if you dont look at the link the end math is that your computer probably uses a max of 150w when you are using it (they say on the website about 80) and your monitor another 120w... when in sleep mode it uses a max of 50 (and your monitor uses practically nothing ie. 0-15)
so... dont worry about it... he mentioned ont he site how if you used your computer/monitor intensely 8hr a day it would cost about $3.30 a month (im from usa so roughly $0.10/kwh)
tacking on 16 hours of sleep mode = another 2.4$ a month
logically you might spend about $10 a month on your computer
hope i was helpful
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Senior Member
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22. June 2005 @ 07:34 |
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And I hope you are correct :)
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent...
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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nmcbean
Newbie
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22. June 2005 @ 07:41 |
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it all makes sense to me, i found a few other sites that had very similar information, this one just presented it the best way
it wouldnt make sense for your computer to use the max power all the time... if it did there woudl be problems
for example... if your computer used all 450w, and u got a new cd drive and installed it... it would need some w of its own but the powersupply wouldnt be able to supply it
therefore the powersupplies logically have to be built huge to support any sort of upgrade you could want...
some things would use much more power... i bet playing a new videogame uses about ~30 more w (maybe more, its just a random guess)
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baabaa
AfterDawn Addict
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22. June 2005 @ 10:16 |
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Back to my original statement:
Quote:
Your girlfriend loses, period, stick that to her and tell her to either turn off the lights or lose the hair dryer..............
You will never be pulling as much juice out of the mains as the lights do..........................................................
Nice site by the way.................
I was going to say, look at the specs of laptops power, they run on much lower supplies and the technology in them is no different to a regular desktop - except for the size of course.........
...............PIO is no go, DMA all the way...............
Beware of the Pixies - they move in over night and turn your life upside down
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 22. June 2005 @ 10:22
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Senior Member
1 product review
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22. June 2005 @ 10:57 |
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I Was giving worst case scenario. I can admit defeat. So I throw up my white flag. But really even with that web site it is going to depend on what is on the inside of your system and what you are doing with it. I know on my current setup a 350 Watt would keep crashing. I put in a 450Watt and it hasn't crashed since. There is something I keep hearing of that you can attach to the cord to get current readings. I have not looked for this item so I do not know if it exists. You don't have to cut the cord anywhere. There must be some proof to it if Auto timing guns work.
If I understood that website correct then I have another reason PC is better than Mac. They use less power.
-Del
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