How to cut your electricity use

Beckipeg

We bought an electrisave off ebay - not exactly moneysaving as it would take a while for our electricity savings to meet the cost of buying it - but we have fun trying to keep the cost in single figures and as it registers even the smallest changes is great to keep an eye on the children turning on their lights after bedtime when we're downstairs. They still haven't worked out how we catch them so quickly. It's a gadget, but we like gadgets sometimes.

fatnbald

Cypher wrote:

They quote maximums hesmy. So thats not necessarily the case.

I assumed my PC was taking in excess of 500w when in reality it turned out to be only 174w.

I also wanted to work out what they were using in standby. This PC + printer etc is around 15w

Your power supply will be quoted as the maximum rating, unless your PC is fully loaded with a drive on every power plug and fans in every orifice it will consuming far less than the stated 500W.

espresso

fatnbald wrote:

Your power supply will be quoted as the maximum rating, unless your PC is fully loaded with a drive on every power plug and fans in every orifice it will consuming far less than the stated 500W.

This is the maximum wattage for the output of the power supply i.e. at the low voltage side (+5v, +12v, -12v etc) and not the mains input wattage.