Specs are in my sig. All powered by the 450W XClio. About how much more money per month would it cost to power this thing without turning it off than if I only used it for say, 6 hours a day?
What's the cost of leaving my computer on 24/7?
- Thread starter t3h l337 n3wb
- Start date
Well it depends on a lot of things. Would you put it in Suspend mode when not using it? That uses a lot less electricity. A modern computer using an LCD draws around 2 - 3 amps under normal use (less when idle and a lot less when in Suspend mode). What does this mean? Well 1 amp is roughly equivalent to a 100 watt light bulb.
So - ballpark figure - under normal use (surfing, playing a game) you're using the equivalent of running three 100 watt light bulbs.
When in suspend mode you're using maybe the equivalent of a 25 watt light bulb? (I'm guessing here - no time to do any calculations). Figure worst case a 50 watt light bulb in suspend mode, but I'll bet it's less than that.
Me, personally, I leave my rig on 24/7 but then again I'm a self-employed IT Tech and I occasionally need to access my PC via Remote Desktop, otherwise I'd let it go into suspend mode when I'm not using it.
Yeah, it's costing me some money, but nothing that will kill me.
If your Dad is like my Dad was (I'm 45 now, so this is no longer an issue) he grumbled about every needless waste of electricity. We got yelled at if we left lights on we didn't need to or sat there staring at the inside of the fridge with the door open for more than a few seconds. God help us if we left a TV set turned on and left the room to take a piss.
Hey don't get me wrong, I'm cheap too, and consider myself eco-friendly, but I need my computers runningtoo, and it's not like a modern computer draws all that much power. Your fridge, AC, and hot water heater are the biggest power eaters in the house.
I have 5 PCs running 24/7 in this house: 2 Media Center PCs, my Wife's workstation and my workstation plus the server.
So - ballpark figure - under normal use (surfing, playing a game) you're using the equivalent of running three 100 watt light bulbs.
When in suspend mode you're using maybe the equivalent of a 25 watt light bulb? (I'm guessing here - no time to do any calculations). Figure worst case a 50 watt light bulb in suspend mode, but I'll bet it's less than that.
Me, personally, I leave my rig on 24/7 but then again I'm a self-employed IT Tech and I occasionally need to access my PC via Remote Desktop, otherwise I'd let it go into suspend mode when I'm not using it.
Yeah, it's costing me some money, but nothing that will kill me.
If your Dad is like my Dad was (I'm 45 now, so this is no longer an issue) he grumbled about every needless waste of electricity. We got yelled at if we left lights on we didn't need to or sat there staring at the inside of the fridge with the door open for more than a few seconds. God help us if we left a TV set turned on and left the room to take a piss.
Hey don't get me wrong, I'm cheap too, and consider myself eco-friendly, but I need my computers runningtoo, and it's not like a modern computer draws all that much power. Your fridge, AC, and hot water heater are the biggest power eaters in the house.
I have 5 PCs running 24/7 in this house: 2 Media Center PCs, my Wife's workstation and my workstation plus the server.
Oakenfold
Diamond Member
- Feb 8, 2001
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But you pay the electric bill in your household.
The O.P. is more than likely not contributing to his father's expense.
If he contributed to the electric bill I bet his dad wouldn't care.
Contribute to the electric bill, problem gone.
I'm 27 and very uptight about not leaving a light on in a room that I'm not in or a pc that isn't being used for something. That's not to say I don't leave mine on, just when it is actually being used for something.
I don't understand why people are so freaked out over turning off a pc, they have a power switch for a reason, shut the darn thing off when your not using it.
Lasthitlarry
Senior member
- Feb 24, 2005
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I don't understand why people are so freaked over leaving a pc on, there's a suspend mode for a reason, keep the damn thing in suspend mode when your not using it.
Lasthitlarry
Senior member
- Feb 24, 2005
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So it's safe to assume that it would be better for the overall hard drive life and computer to leave it on in suspend mode, rather than turning it on once a day and using it for 4+ hours?
I am currently turning on and off, but I think this is an age old argument.
I do know that machines are alike, and that if you are leaving your car for less than 15 minutes, it is better to let it idle. Maybe it's the same deal. In the end I guess it really doesn't matter, I think my electric bill was 29 bucks last month.
I am currently turning on and off, but I think this is an age old argument.
I do know that machines are alike, and that if you are leaving your car for less than 15 minutes, it is better to let it idle. Maybe it's the same deal. In the end I guess it really doesn't matter, I think my electric bill was 29 bucks last month.
Contribute to the bill and your problem will be solved. I lived with my folks and I had my computer on 24/7, my 46" big screen, my laptop, my 2005fpw, and game consoles on all the time (except for the tv and consoles which was on when I watched it/ used them). My dad didn't care, there was a rule that once you worked full time you paid rent, so I paid rent and my share of the bills. Electricity isn't that much, you should be able to come up with atleast that much to pay your dad, or just turn it off, either way problem solved. His house his rules
This is very similar to the thread I made before. If you run a server PC without a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers etc, does it use much power? Also does Hibernation save more power than Standby?
Thanks.
Thanks.
For a computer system, the power drawn by the monitor (assuming it is an LCD), kb, and rodent is insignificant compared to the power drawn by the HDD, processor, etc. Speakers may draw a little more...but not much... Why the hell would you have speakers on a server anyway?
Hibernation mode is where the computer writes everything that is in RAM to the HDD and then shuts down completely. Upon restart it copies back to RAM the data it originally copied to the HDD.
Hibernation mode and OFF mode draw the same amout of power -- near nil.
Unless you are downloading torrents or other data, or needing to remotely login to your system, you should just use hibernation mode. If you want remote login and really want to be frugal you can always use a Wake-on-LAN NIC to power the system on when you need it.
Pr0d1gy
Diamond Member
- Jan 30, 2005
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Just leave the damned thing on. It's going to draw less power than leaving a light & a TV on in a room, which is to say you might be costing your pops a couple of dollars a month. Now if you have 5 of them like that one dude, you should put them into standby or whatever as that will start to add up. Ask if he is more worried about the bill or about the PC actually having problems from being on constantly. Some old people (I was one of them....lol) think that leaving a PC on 24/7 will shorten it's life span & cause problems down the road it wouldn't normally have, so this is a good question to ask.
Example:
Need to know exactly how much your system draws and where you live for an accurate measurement.
Need to know exactly how much your system draws and where you live for an accurate measurement.
Wow. That's gotta be pretty old that the computer draw 130W! Unless I'm missing something here... I know you just posted it for the formula... Was just saying...
If your hardware supports Suspend to Ram (STR or S3 in the bios), use that, as current draw in that state is extremely small, but the machine will resume operation as fast as the monitor powers up. It works out to pennies per month, even in areas with high electric rates...
I turn my comp off when i go to bed that is about all. When i walk away from the pc i turn off the monitor that is all my parents dont really care since i do turn it off everynight though its 5 right now and i am still awake
I live in Indiana. The efficiency rating of the XClio 450W is >70%, so that's what, a power draw of 643W (I think)? I have my CPU underclocked with C&C to 1000mhz with 1.1V when it's idle. To my knowledge, putting it on standby closes network connections, so I wouldn't be able to download stuff or receive IM's...
That's quite an extensive calculation that probably could have been simpler. Hehe Why would you convert watts to joules and then convert back to Kilowatts? Just divide by 1000 and you have a Kilowatt. Also, your price seems a bit skewed.. I would pay more per month here for a computer running since according to your calculation it's only burning up about 17 cents at most. I'd expect to pay around $25-35 a month for a computer if it was running full time (with an average of 5 hours per day main use, and just idle for about 19 hours or so and monitor off during that time).
Everything is going to depend on the specific machine, the amount of time being on, and the price per kilowatt hour.
hmm... I just noticed my laptop's power brick's specs work out to 64.98W... so this means worst case scenario that's the max consumption by the entire system? that's crazy... just one light bulb.
Hibernate!
Basically copies contents of RAM to HD and saves any session-critical information
Totally turns off, then boots back up in like 3 seconds
Basically copies contents of RAM to HD and saves any session-critical information
Totally turns off, then boots back up in like 3 seconds
Ok, you have a computer that runs 24/7 365 days a year, it uses on average 200W.
= 4.8 Kwh a day.
= 1752 Kwh a year.
If you're paying around $0.10 per kwh that means you're paying $175 to run it all year long.
However the average power draw from your computer will be less than that. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article265-page4.html The highest load they could get was only 225W, if you're not throwing in huge numbers of Hard drives and running your SLI setup at full load 24/7 then the machine will idle under 100W somewhere. This won't increase much for office apps...
= 4.8 Kwh a day.
= 1752 Kwh a year.
If you're paying around $0.10 per kwh that means you're paying $175 to run it all year long.
However the average power draw from your computer will be less than that. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article265-page4.html The highest load they could get was only 225W, if you're not throwing in huge numbers of Hard drives and running your SLI setup at full load 24/7 then the machine will idle under 100W somewhere. This won't increase much for office apps...
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 80,287
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I am stuck out here in The Peoples Republic of California. Even with the silly prices, electricity is not killing my wallet.
I found that by turning my computer off regularily I move from a $55 monthly bill to a $50 monthly bill. It really doesnt matter.
BUT..... I find that by turning my computer off regularily I waste an average of 5 hours a month waiting for reboots and restarts of my favorite programs.
(For the curious, I timed a single boot up and then made a tally mark every time I had to boot up. You can probably figure out what happens next.)
I found that by turning my computer off regularily I move from a $55 monthly bill to a $50 monthly bill. It really doesnt matter.
BUT..... I find that by turning my computer off regularily I waste an average of 5 hours a month waiting for reboots and restarts of my favorite programs.
(For the curious, I timed a single boot up and then made a tally mark every time I had to boot up. You can probably figure out what happens next.)
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