Power Consumption

Willz

Willz

MiCrO$oFt $uK$ :D
Hi.

I have been thinking about getting a SATA hdd, i just remembered that Sata cables are smaller, so if i got a sata and removed my IDE hdd's, i would have a cleaner case, the thing is, i wouldent want to ditch the hard drives as there is loads of data on and would be a disaster if i couldent access it all, so what i am thinking about doing is brining my server back to life with 2 hard drives tottaling 410gb.

The thing is, my mum rows on about electric, the electric bill used to be around £100, and its shot up to £160 now, my mum blames most of the electric bill on my computer and the speakers, she says i clock up nearly 50 % of the bill, surely a computer and some Logitech Z5500 speakers cant clock that much money up right?, any ideas how much electric a computer uses.

My main computer has 2x LED fans, 1 Cathode fan (fan turned off just cathode on), 580w Hiper-Type-R, X800XTPE, 1 sound sensitive 12" cathode, 1 led bubble light, X-FI Fatal1ty, 3700+ overclockers to 2.8ghz, 1 hard drive, 1 dvd-rw, 1 I/o panel for X-FI, some wierd UV string thing light.

now would the above system be consuming heaploads of electric when on for say 12-14 hours a day, would it use more than one of these Sony trinitron 28" TV's been on for about 5 hours a day + 300w home theatre system?

Also how much would a computer with the folling specs proberbly use?

celeron S 1.2ghz, 384mb sd ram, 300w power supply, 2x hard drives?

someone told me that a computer can use only as much as a 60W lightbulb when idle.


I know this sounds like a wierd posts, just i dont like keeping computer on to download and thing like that becouse i think there will be a super giant electric bill, i dunno weather my mum is just talking total crap or what, but i would like to think my computer was not using that much power.
 
Depends on if it's idle or not. Idle will use less juice simply because the additional power is not required. CRT displays (monitors and traditional TV's) use a lot of juice as well, so, yeah, I can see it incresing the power use some, particularly if you're running the system full force most of the time.

60W from a computer? Maybe some C3-based box, but not the average gamer's desktop.

I find it hard to believe that your system alone would account for over a third of the electric bill. Yes, computers are power hungry, but that seems a bit disproportionate. See if you can trim a few hours off each day and see if the bill goes down significantly. If you've got a CRT monitor, turn that off whenever you can, since that does suck a lot of juice too.
 
What about the speaker system, when i am not at the computer i turn it to standby, do they still use power when in standby? and becouse its 500w/100w does that mean it takes 1000watts from the mains?
 
Take a meter reading, leave the machine on all day. Take a meter reading, leave the machine off all day. You will have the answer you desire.
 
Why not surprised if it's unbranded or generic? Willz has an awesome PSU - the Hyper Type R 580W PSU, he was like the first one around here to get it.
 
Yea, and i got it from a shop near me called PC World :p was stupid really since i could of got it for about £3 cheaper on the net :p, It's not a bad PSU at all, takes anything i throw at it, i have heaps of stuff connected to it, i am glad i bought it, and there aint that many PSU's that look really kool with lighting up fans and UV reactive connectors and Braiding + blue chrome looking paint on the PSU and the Most cool looking Modular connectors of every PSU out there, and do there job really good too, most of the PSU's with loads of Eye Candy and kool looking stuff mostly turn out to be cheap junk. Obviously my PSU aint the best PSU but it is Awesome, if i ever go crossfire
or SLI i will need to get a new psu, proberbly another Hiper Type-R, as i got mine before they were made for SLI.

It even came in a tool box kind of thing :p i use it as a tool box and its a kool looking tool box too :p

also LORD, how exatly do i take a metre reading, i dont know what to look for.

There is a heading saying KWh, then some sort of milage metre thing saing Low, and another one saying Norm and udner that is this wierd thing that spins around and you can see this little black thing on the thign that spins come around every so often, sometimes its slower, sometimes it's faster, it's and old electric metre.

at the moment it says 708879 low and 721810 Norm, in the morning there is a real big click that comes from the metre, and there is one at night too.

It wont be very accurate as other electric stuff turned on in house, i dont have a metre just for the computer, would be good if software could estimate it.
 
Matt555 said:
Why not surprised if it's unbranded or generic? Willz has an awesome PSU - the Hyper Type R 580W PSU, he was like the first one around here to get it.
Click to expand...

i didnt try to dis anyone, i was just trying to say that if it was an unbranded or generic, it wudnt be a surprise that it was the psu because it wudnt hav been able to supply enuff power.
i wasnt aware of wat psu willz had
 
Willz said:
Yea, and i got it from a shop near me called PC World :p was stupid really since i could of got it for about £3 cheaper on the net :p, It's not a bad PSU at all, takes anything i throw at it, i have heaps of stuff connected to it, i am glad i bought it, and there aint that many PSU's that look really kool with lighting up fans and UV reactive connectors and Braiding + blue chrome looking paint on the PSU and the Most cool looking Modular connectors of every PSU out there, and do there job really good too, most of the PSU's with loads of Eye Candy and kool looking stuff mostly turn out to be cheap junk. Obviously my PSU aint the best PSU but it is Awesome, if i ever go crossfire
or SLI i will need to get a new psu, proberbly another Hiper Type-R, as i got mine before they were made for SLI.

It even came in a tool box kind of thing :p i use it as a tool box and its a kool looking tool box too :p

also LORD, how exatly do i take a metre reading, i dont know what to look for.

There is a heading saying KWh, then some sort of milage metre thing saing Low, and another one saying Norm and udner that is this wierd thing that spins around and you can see this little black thing on the thign that spins come around every so often, sometimes its slower, sometimes it's faster, it's and old electric metre.

at the moment it says 708879 low and 721810 Norm, in the morning there is a real big click that comes from the metre, and there is one at night too.

It wont be very accurate as other electric stuff turned on in house, i dont have a metre just for the computer, would be good if software could estimate it.
Click to expand...

its not really possible to measure how much electricity ur computer is using unless u switch off everything else that uses electricity in the house. then u can take the meter reading, use the computer how u wud normally for just say half and hour or even better an hour, (play a game or sumthing) and then take the meter reading agen.

if u used it for an hour and just say it used 300watts (0.3kw) then u can say that in approximately 3.3hours, ur computer uses 1 kilowatt which costs around 8pence in the uk i think.
 
Willz said:
also LORD, how exatly do i take a metre reading, i dont know what to look for.
Click to expand...

The low reading is usually for night usage and the normal for day usage. Take the readings in the morning and subtract them form the readings at the end of the day. You will need to check the cost per unit from your elec supplier and then you will get a rough idea of how much the PC is costing you per day whilst its on.

Might be worth taking the readings over a few days so that you get an average.
 
so what do i subtract the reading from?, Low from norm?

for example, in the past 2 hours:
Biggining: Low: 70887[9] Norm: 72181[0]
Now: Low: 70887[9] Norm: 72184[1/2] (its inbetween 1 and 2)

so what does this mean i have used, i dont understand.
 
Willz said:
so what do i subtract the reading from?, Low from norm?

for example, in the past 2 hours:
Biggining: Low: 70887[9] Norm: 72181[0]
Now: Low: 70887[9] Norm: 72184[1/2] (its inbetween 1 and 2)

so what does this mean i have used, i dont understand.
Click to expand...


You have only used Normal units so far then. Subtract the start reading (72181 from the current reading (72184) gives you 3 units. If the electricity is costing you 1p per unit (just for simple maths, its probably more) you would have used 3p worth of electricity. You will probably find that overnight the low units are used which are usually cheaper. You just need to find out from your electricity supplier how much each unit of electricity costs for the low reading and the normal reading.

izzy007 said:
its not really possible to measure how much electricity ur computer is using unless u switch off everything else that uses electricity in the house.
Click to expand...

If you wanted a more accurate reading I would record the unit usage over the period of a week or so to get a decent average. I dont think it needs to be accurate to within pennies, just a rough percentage of how much extra the PC is using.
 
so every day at say 10am i take a reading of Low and Norm, then at night at about 10pm i take another reading of Low and Norm over a week?
 
Yep, should give you a rough idea of how much power the PC is using. Dont forget to do the same with the PC off to get a comparison.
 
also, this you said earlyer "Subtract the start reading (72181 from the current reading (72184) gives you 3 units" Why only subtract the last number? And why not the end number i put in []?
 
I would just use the whole units, I think thats what the bill is charged by. You will need to phone the electricity supplier and find out exactly how they charge. Its a pain but I cant think of another way to get a decent idea of how much the PC is costing you.
 
so how many units would it be when the numbers change from 72184 ot say 12297 or somthing like that?
 
The numbers will always rise like a car odometer, if you have any doubts check with the supplier.
 
yea but the suplier cant tell me how much electric my computer has used.

in the morning these were the reading.

708898 low
721924 Norm

now they are:

708902 Low
721975 Norm
so does this mean i have used 6 units? (5 from 2-7 and 1 from 4 to 5) (Norm)??
 
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