Being particularly tight about electricity use!

albyota

good link there jennyR68

Talldave

gollum007 wrote: »

The more you're doing with it, the less efficient it will be in terms of power usage.
-Gollum

That's a rather skewed view of efficiency!! So you're saying that a laptop sat doing nothing other than keeping Windows running is more efficient than a laptop which is running several applications and actually doing something for the user - albiet taking slightly more power to do so???

purplestar133

JennyR68 wrote: »

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-356-2.htm

Wow, very interesting.

purplestar133

NeverInDebt wrote: »

Yes a Xbox will I suspect

You can get a main adaptor for ipods and they not expensive

Didn't know that. I will look into getting one...

Stu666

*Deleted because it was wrong info

Fire_Fox

purplestar133 wrote: »

My ipod can only be charged via a USB port so no choice on that! Talking of Xboxes, do they use a lot of electricity? If I was to say, watch a DVD on an Xbox, would it use more elec than watching it on a DVD player?

This is a non-technical answer and a generalisation so please no nit picking. The most expensive appliances are ones that produce lots of heat - so electric shower, space heaters, tumble dryer, hot wash for laundry. Same really goes for all the small electronic stuff, if it gets hot it is wasting energy. So if your XBox gets warm and your DVD player doesn't, or a halogen lamp gets burning and a flourescent bulb doesn't, a desktop computer gets hotter than your laptop ... you know which to choose. Of course you could argue the heat isn't wasted if it is winter and you are sat in the same room!

albyota

Stu666 wrote: »

Thinking about the laptop charging the iPod question, I would have thought that the laptop uses the same amount of energy regardless of what it is doing, for the sole reason that the laptop's own charger is outputting a constant voltage. Lets say we have a typical 19 volt charger, it outputs 19 volts regardless of what you are doing. You can shut the lid and power the laptop down, but as long as the charger is plugged in and switched on, it is constantly using 19 volts. It is the same as the mobile phone charger problem. People think that if it's not plugged into the phone, then it mustn't be using much electricity. But in actual fact it is using just the same as it always does, as long as the current is flowing.

If you are using the laptop off the mains and on battery alone then yes, you are using a stored reserve of energy and I suppose that means you are being more efficient.

Don't quote me on this though, I am by no means an electrician.

I suppose your car uses exactly the same amount of fuel whether you are on your own or whether you have 4 passengers and luggage .:doh:


If a computer is not running any applications it will use xx amount of energy...if it is running several applications, especially high graphic games it will use XXX amount of energy.

albyota

Stu666, you should really get this as you repair computers..........Volts are there at the socket....they do not dribble out down the wall if you leave the socket left switched on....current is drawn only if there is a load, once a battery is fully charged it cannot pull any more current

you'll soon be asking "where does the dark go when I turn the light on":eek:

Stu666

albyota wrote: »

I suppose your car uses exactly the same amount of fuel whether you are on your own or whether you have 4 passengers and luggage .:doh:


If a computer is not running any applications it will use xx amount of energy...if it is running several applications, especially high graphic games it will use XXX amount of energy.

You're quite right, I'm forgetting about watts aren't I?

Thinking about the laptop battery charging the iPod, I suppose charging the laptop battery in the first place uses a certain amount of watts, which will be drawn again when it gets replenished, so perhaps the laptop battery is not really being quite so efficient after all?

Now you know why I'm not a sparky!

albyota

well......where does the dark go....?