PC energy consumption

LizEstelle

During my switch over from dial up to broadband a few years ago, the telewest installer blithely said ' Don't bother with switching off your system - just let it run continuously'.

It seems to me that this can't be right, as I have no use for the pc generally between 11 at night and midday, even though I'm on an unilimted internet access tariff.

Recently I've taken to switching off during that period. Am I saving money in so doing or was he right?

gaming_guy

you would be saving energy by switching the computer off, and leaving your computer on you may be more vulnerable to nasties

Happy_frank

My pentium 4 2.8ghz consumes around 95w when running, so yes you are saving energy by switching off.
I tend to leave mine in standby mode so it comes on in about 3 seconds when you move the mouse this only consumes around 2w.

LizEstelle

Isn't there something about the pc consuming megazillions of wattampohmvolts on boot up? Maybe that's what he was referring to.

superscaper

LizEstelle wrote:

Isn't there something about the pc consuming megazillions of wattampohmvolts on boot up? Maybe that's what he was referring to.

No, there may be voltage spiking but in terms of energy usage it's basically next to nothing.

Poppycat

Like most electrical goods they do consume more power when first turned on, this last seconds. Its better to have it turned off for hours on end, fair enough if you want a coffee and a break for 15 minutes maybe its best left on. Just use the power options in control panel to set it so monitor switches off when no activity for say 15 minutes and hard drives auto switch off after 30 minutes etc.

LizEstelle

As a matter of interest, anybody have a guesstimate of how much your average pc would cost running continuously 24/7/365..?

tomstickland

Well, there are 365*24 = 8760 hours per year. If it takes 100W then that's 0.1 of unit per hour, so it'd use 876 units per year at, say, 10p per unit which is £87.

jmarko

LizEstelle wrote:

As a matter of interest, anybody have a guesstimate of how much your average pc would cost running continuously 24/7/365..?

Typically something in the region of £60/year. Switching it off in the evenings and at weekends reduces it down to £15/year.

For some reason even when people switch off PCs, they have a tendancy not to switch off the printer AT THE MAINS! :mad:

jmarko

littleange

Happy_frank wrote:

I tend to leave mine in standby mode so it comes on in about 3 seconds when you move the mouse this only consumes around 2w.

If you want to make sure the pc is using less power make sure standby is set to S3 rather than S1

ssjx

Hi,
Maplin do a handy power monitor (item code: L61AQ) if you want to find out exactly how much power is being used.

Also, you may want to take a look at enabling the Hibernate function for quick starts in XP.