How much electricity am I using??

[djxlee]

Just wondering, if I leave the my computer on 24/7, will there be a significant increase in electricity charges?

I have a 430W powersupply

 

[Anonemous]

newegg has a product that measures the amount of power you consume. It's a nifty little gadget for 10$. I guess, it also depends on how many drives/fans/cpus/lights etc.. you are powering (not the PSU) and also if you are leaving your monitor on and also your AREA. Like for instance the elec. bills in Boston are << than the bills I get in LA.

edit: Darn can't find said gadget...

 

[djxlee]

Yeah, I live in LA and the bill is crazy. Well, like I said I have a True430 ps, 1 optical drive, 1 hdd, 1 fdd, 3 case fans, 9600xt

Think this takes up a lot?

 

[Anonemous]

Originally posted by: djxlee
Yeah, I live in LA and the bill is crazy. Well, like I said I have a True430 ps, 1 optical drive, 1 hdd, 1 fdd, 3 case fans, 9600xt

Think this takes up a lot?

Nope. what cpu? is it oc'd? It should add about 10-20$ /month to your bill.

 

[viivo]

Originally posted by: djxlee
Just wondering, if I leave the my computer on 24/7, will there be a significant increase in electricity charges?

I have a 430W powersupply

I'm not sure what you would consider significant, but since electric prices fluctuate throughout the day you will probably see a noticable increase if you run the PC in addition to other things at peak hours.

 

[welst10]

There is also risk of hacking and virus attacks when you leave it on.

 

[djxlee]

Originally posted by: Anonemous

Originally posted by: djxlee
Yeah, I live in LA and the bill is crazy. Well, like I said I have a True430 ps, 1 optical drive, 1 hdd, 1 fdd, 3 case fans, 9600xt

Think this takes up a lot?

Nope. what cpu? is it oc'd? It should add about 10-20$ /month to your bill.

I run a 2500+ oc'd to 2.22.

Originally posted by: welst10
There is also risk of hacking and virus attacks when you leave it on.

I don't have anything important saved on my computer, so I don't really worry too much about that. Besides, I think I reformat my HD at least a month or so

 

[BD2003]

Your best option is to just put it in power save mode. If your mobo supports STR, it should take little to no power, be absolutely quiet, and will boot up in about 5 seconds. It usually boots up faster than my monitor comes on.

That being said, you probably should worry more about leaving your monitor running all night rather than the PC, unless you have an LCD.

 

[djxlee]

Well, I'd like to put it on standby/power save mode, but my roommates are using my gigabit lan for the internet so i leave my computer on. I do have an LCD, but I turn it off when I'm not using it.

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

not very sure, but a random guess is that not under any load your puter uses 200-250W. there are crappy power calculators that add up the consuption for all your components but you could get one of theose devices( a digital multimeter) at any electronics dealer and actually measure it.

1 watt = V*I = R*I^2 not sure how you would measure the actual values, mabe connect it to the lead and ground of each wire leaving the psu and add em up

i think power companies charge by the kilowatt-hour, so 200W*8 hours*price per KW-h = 1.6KW-h*price per KW-h = price to leave it on one hour

 

[cy7878]

general rule. A computer CPU consumes about 100w, less when the HD spins down when not active. Optical drives, if not spinning, consumes 1-2W, so it's insignificant.

 

[Zepper]

There is a review of the Seasonic Power Angel (a power/kwh meter) that shows what the author found out about the cost of running his computer. Perhaps it will get you in the ballpark.

There is a review of a similar device (Kill A Watt) here: http://www.techimo.com/reviews/

.bh.

:moon:

 

[imported_whatever]

dunno what you think about it, but one way to save power is to clock your cpu down when you leave it on but are not really using it. i have an xpm 2500+ that i clock at 2.6GHz @2.0v, using about 120W of power. when i clock it at 1.3GHz @1.1v, it uses less than 15W of power. although this is for the cpu only, it may have a noticeable difference. it should also extend the life of the cpu a bit, as it should do fine at lower voltage and put out less heat.

 

[ampiere]

Let's say I have a 450W psu, install only 1 processor and one hdd, using integrated graphic, sound and lan, nothing else inside the cpu case, will my computer still consume 450W of power? (excluding monitor power)

 

[vegetation]

Originally posted by: cy7878
general rule. A computer CPU consumes about 100w, less when the HD spins down when not active. Optical drives, if not spinning, consumes 1-2W, so it's insignificant.

A modern fast cpu only consumes 100w+ when pegged to its limit. At idling state with such as an A64/P4 would use far far less power than that. So unless you're running some distributive program, you'll probably be on the lower edge of the cpu power curve if running 24x7. HINT: Turn those silly background number crunching programs OFF to gain immediate savings in power costs.

 

[vegetation]

Originally posted by: ampiere
Let's say I have a 450W psu, install only 1 processor and one hdd, using integrated graphic, sound and lan, nothing else inside the cpu case, will my computer still consume 450W of power? (excluding monitor power)

No, at idle state I would guestimate around 50-80w idling. I have a kill-a-watt meter and have done testing to various systems to draw this number up (with P4-2.0 to 2.8 systems). At full cpu intensity that number will of course jump considerably.

 

[heartsurgeon]

this is a political statement...

when i was young..we were hammered with the idea of saving energy....
this was to save the enviroment and reduce energy usage.

now that i'm a conservative...i like to save my money and not waste it on computers using up energy.

everyone of my kids leaves computers on, leaves tv's on, leaves lights on...it drives me nuits..
but there it is...

now all my kids are liberals, they all want to "save the enviroment", all that crap...
but you know, they don't take individual responsibility to reduce energy consumption in this country.

for heaven's sake man...turn the freakin computers off!!
tell the roomies to chip in and buy a router...

save some money...
reduce our energy dependance on foreign countries..
reduce air pollution..

do what's right......

 

[Gurck]

I did the math a while back and it costs roughly $10-$15 US a month to leave a pc on 24/7, that's not including the monitor.

Originally posted by: welst10
There is also risk of hacking and virus attacks when you leave it on.

Mine's almost always on, I haven't had any problems. I keep windows updated, am behind a router, use a software firewall, and regularly scan for spyware &amp; viruses.

 

[cy7878]

Originally posted by: whatever
dunno what you think about it, but one way to save power is to clock your cpu down when you leave it on but are not really using it. i have an xpm 2500+ that i clock at 2.6GHz @2.0v, using about 120W of power. when i clock it at 1.3GHz @1.1v, it uses less than 15W of power. although this is for the cpu only, it may have a noticeable difference. it should also extend the life of the cpu a bit, as it should do fine at lower voltage and put out less heat.

I think your math is wrong. 2.0V can't consume 120W if at 1.1V it only eats up 15W. The formula is W=V*I

 

[Skelshy]

Some measurements (taken with a kill-a-watt)
setup: idle/load

Chenming ATX-601AE 330W, P4/2.53 GHz/533, Radeon 9800Pro, 1GB RAM : 139 W/183 W (+44)
Aria 300W, Athlon XP 1800+/266, FX5200,2xPVR250: 101 W/137 W (+36)
Chenming ATX-601AW 350W, Athlon XP 2500@3200+, 333 FSB, Ti4200 108W/166W (+58)

 

[djxlee]

So, am I looking at about $10-$25 increase in the bill? Split that with the roomies, shouldn't hurt too bad...

 

[fuzzynavel]

Here's a novel idea.....get yourself a router to keep your connection alive and just turn the computer off....split the cost with your room mates and it shouldn't cost too much!!!

 

[gnumantsc]

Why would it make a difference if your computer has a Gigabit nic to access the internet? No internet provider provides even close to that so there is no point in you having your computer on at all.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: heartsurgeon
this is a political statement...

when i was young..we were hammered with the idea of saving energy....
this was to save the enviroment and reduce energy usage.

now that i'm a conservative...i like to save my money and not waste it on computers using up energy.

everyone of my kids leaves computers on, leaves tv's on, leaves lights on...it drives me nuits..
but there it is...

now all my kids are liberals, they all want to "save the enviroment", all that crap...
but you know, they don't take individual responsibility to reduce energy consumption in this country.

for heaven's sake man...turn the freakin computers off!!
tell the roomies to chip in and buy a router...

save some money...
reduce our energy dependance on foreign countries..
reduce air pollution..

do what's right......

Geez, reading that, I'm thinking "Maybe he means 'Now that I'm conservative', not 'a conservative'." I always thought the conservatives were of the "F the environment, I want to do what I want, and if that means running a PC off a gas generator all night, so be it!"

Liberal here, and I usually turn the PC off, unless I've got some app I want running all night to do something useful. But they can be told to turn off the PC at a specific time, or you can schedule a shutdown.
(Need to turn on the PC at a specific time? Use the BIOS - RTC Alarm Wake On time.)
I'm also just about obsessive about turning off lights, closing doors, conservation, etc.

 

[CJP]

Originally posted by: BD2003

That being said, you probably should worry more about leaving your monitor running all night rather than the PC, unless you have an LCD.

I leave my computer on all day (shut off at night) and my crt is on all day as well. However it goes into a power saving mode after about 20 minutes where the screen goes blank and the on light changes colour. I assumed that it was ok to leave it in this state all day so I've haven't been shutting it off. Is this ok or should I shut off the monitor when I'm away from it for awhile?