Computers and Electricity Usage

patwa_2

Hi there.

We switched to London Energy in May/June, and have already received a £22 credit on our bills. This is strange, as the bills with the previous supplier Powergen used to be a lot higher. the only thing that has changed though since mid-June is that my desktop computer has not been running at all (compared to 24 hours a day usually) but instead my Acer Aspire 9504WSMi has been running nearly non-stop in its place.

Mum has attributed the reduced energy consumption to the reason explained above, which I tend to agree with. However, I'm going to be building a new computer shortly, and was wondering how much that is likely to cost compred to this laptop, running 24 hours a day? I'd like to know as then I may consider contributing to the bill, even though our family is not the accounting type.

Previous computer:
500W PSU, Intel Celeron 2.6Ghz, 1GB RAM, 2x160GB SATA Hard Drives, 2xDVD-RW Drives, 128MB AGP Graphics.

New Computer:
750W PSU, AMD X2 AM2 4200+, 2GB RAM, 4x320GB Hard Drive, 2xDVD-RW, 1GB Nvidia Geforce 7950GX2 Graphics.

Any advice on this would be appreciated. Obviously the new computer will be more energy consuming, but by how much and what is that in terms of monthly running cost?

Cheers and take care.

Hussein.

Cardew

It really is not possible to work it out as it depends largely on the work it is doing, the cooling fans, power saving mode set up.

The 750 watt PSU doesn't mean anything in terms of power consumption.

From memory my new Desktop/19"LCD averages about 130 watts. so say 1p an hour. Power saving mode - very little.

patwa_2

Hmm, ok then. Assuming full load based on the above figure would be around 9-10p an hour. Not bad in the general scheme of things.

Cheers and take care.

Hussein

Cardew

patwa wrote:

Hmm, ok then. Assuming full load based on the above figure would be around 9-10p an hour. Not bad in the general scheme of things.

Cheers and take care.

Hussein

You are assuming that your PC on full load will draw 750 watts? Even then it would be nearer to 6p.

I assume that they put in large capacity PSU's to cover every possibility - running it with a huge old CRT monitor, devices on every USB, speakers without their own power supply, fans all running, DVD burning, etc etc.

I cannot get mine to use above 200 watts even for a moment - with everything running. I looked at some USA sites and I also never saw a instantaneous consumption above 200 watts.

patwa_2

Thanks. My current rig requires an external USB hub withAC power. It's not powerfun enogh to support them even with a 500W PSU.

At least I now have some idea. Looking at an average say £45 a month, which is not bad in the general scheme of things.

Cheers and take care.

Hussein.

jam

Hi,

Sorry i'm a little late to the thread, (actually found it while looking for accounting software for my pc!) but this sort of power meter might be useful if you're really interested in finding out what things use. I had one on my fish tank for a while, turned out it cost about 5p a day to run.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343&doy=20m8

Norbert_Colon

I tested my PC and monitor with one of those Maplin meters and they drew a steady 70 watts each (total 2p an hour during the day).

littleange

I've tested my laptop and pc with them too.

Laptop: old p3 dell
Laptop off but plugged in: 2w
Laptop on standby: 4w
On but idle: 25w
On full load: 45w
On and charging two batteries: 75w

PC: pentium 805, 2 x 200gb sata hdd drives, 2 x dvd-rw drives, 512mb graphics card, wireless card, 2 gb ram, 350w fanless psu, 19" TFT
Off but plugged in: 18w
On Standby (S3 not S1 as it uses a lot more): 18w
Monitor on: 30w
PC on but idle without monitor: 140w
Printer on but idle: 5w
PC full load without monitor: 220w