How many BTU's do our computers produce?

[joe4324]

I've been doing alot of research lately into sustainable housing. (earthen homes, super high effeciency insulations, Airrated concrete foams and even underground homes) These super effecient structures can be built to require VERY low amounts of heat to maintian proper tempatures. As little as 5-10,000 BTU per hour in some of the most effecient designs (assuming 20F tempatures I believe) I've read that the human body produces between 5-800 BTU per hour of heat. (brings a new meaning to the term "house warming party" eh?

Anyway, I would like to know how best to calculate the heat produced by a personal computer. I would like it to be fairly accurate and take in account differences like monitor sizes and even Megahertz on your cpu's.

How would you approach this situation? And what are some good resources to try to figure this out? It might be possible to maintian proper temps inside your home while playing your favorite video game! I hope!!

 

[dullard]

It is easy to calculate the max possible from a typical computer. Suppose you have a 300W power supply and a 19" monitor that uses up to 120W (but 110W typically). Thus at most a properly functioning computer will use 420W = 1433 BTU/hr. But of course that is a maximum. You rarely would need a full 300W from your power supply. The HD uses less power when it isn't in use, the CPU and video card use less power when idle, etc. Thus typically it will be far less than 1433 BTU/hr - most likely on average you'll be using more like 800 BTU/hr. You cannot reliably count on computers alone, since their power output varies with use.

There are plenty of places that list power requirements of each component. Just add up what you have and you know the maximum you will use with your computer.

Then we get the question: what do you do in the summer when you need to get rid of heat? How will your computer help you then?

 

[joe4324]

I had thought about calculating it out that same way you did, But like you said rarely do we run at 100% capacity and it doesnt take into account kinetic energy (fans,cdroms,hdd's) so why its nice to know the theoretical amount of heat it COULD produce it doesnt do a whole lot to putting me with in a few hundred BTU's of accuracy, I would say your guess of 800BTU is pretty good, I'd just LOVE to know for sure...


In the summertime I will of course not have 4+ computers in the house running seti@home 24/7, but in northern indiana were I live Its about 70% heating 30% cooling if you go by degree-zones. So disposing of the heat is pretty un-important to me. I've got other ideas to deal with that. Perhaps I should try to dig up tech-specs on the hardware to give me a good idea. I know that when I get 8+ comps running at a lan party at my place I can turn the heat waaay down (like 55) nad it still stays warm in all the rooms were we play. So it know its at least a fair amount of heat. (people count too)