Any real power saving with pc in 'sleep mode'?

Charlton_King

Rather than shut down the Dell overnight, I put it in the option 'sleep mode'... but how much power does this save, does anyone know?

Also I note that, even in 'shut down' mode, there's still a small, green light shining away merrily to itself on the rear of the beast - eh, what nonsense! Do I really have to pull the plug to achieve a zero power usage?

danivtec

When you put the pc to sleep it Suspends to RAM.

Suspend-to-RAM (STR) occurs when a system enters a low-power state. Information on system configuration, open applications, and active files is stored in main memory (RAM ), while most of the system's other components are turned off. A system in STR can use as little as 5 watts of power, with most of it going to main memory for data maintenance.

So yes to acheive zero power useage you need to pull the plug.

Lakeuk

My PC uses the following:-

ON - 140 watt per hr
Sleep/Standby - 90 watt per hr
OFF - 5 to 10 watt per hr
pull plug - zero watt per hr

At some point I want to build a PVR based PC that only draws 2 to 3 watt when off so it's on par with standalone VCR's but motherboard manufacters don't give this sort wattage info in their manuals

Aliktren

so nearly 2kw just turned off per year, thats kinda depressing, I really need to start remembering to turn off at the plug

esuhl

Charlton_King wrote: »

Rather than shut down the Dell overnight, I put it in the option 'sleep mode'... but how much power does this save, does anyone know?

A negative amount! You will be using virtually no energy at all if you shut down the PC, whereas sleep mode does require some power.

Charlton_King wrote: »

Also I note that, even in 'shut down' mode, there's still a small, green light shining away merrily to itself on the rear of the beast - eh, what nonsense! Do I really have to pull the plug to achieve a zero power usage?

This is possibly the light on the network adapter. A small amount of power is fed to the PC and network adapter so that the Wake On LAN (WOL) feature works. Apparently you can turn a PC on by sending a "magic packet" from another PC on the network.

Aliktren

Aliktren wrote: »

so nearly 2kw just turned off per year, thats kinda depressing, I really need to start remembering to turn off at the plug

actually thats rubbish isnt it...

0.05 kw/h for 24 hours, 365 day a year, assuming 12p mer kwh, isnt that like 50 quid ayear, just to leave the PC on standby, have I got that wrong ?

Charlton_King

Lakeuk wrote: »

My PC uses the following:-

ON - 140 watt per hr
Sleep/Standby - 90 watt per hr
OFF - 5 to 10 watt per hr
pull plug - zero watt per hr

At some point I want to build a PVR based PC that only draws 2 to 3 watt when off some it's on par with standalone VCR's but motherboard manufacters don't give this sort of info in their manuals

So this is the double-speak age we're living through, where 'seedless' grapes are allowed to have 3 or fewer pips and a computer's 'off' mode means still on.

Sometimes I despair...

msun

There are 2 kinds of "sleep" mode for PCs:-

1. Standby - uses some power but much less than in "on" state
2. Hibernate - uses same power as "turned off" but left plugged in.

I like to use standby for laptops and hibernate for desktops. This provides a good combination quick start ups with practical power savings (in my opinion).

Hibernate is safe even with power cut wheras "standby" is safe for laptops because of the batteries which desktops do not have.

Cheers from mike

Charlton_King

msun wrote: »

There are 2 kinds of "sleep" mode for PCs:-

1. Standby - uses some power but much less than in "on" state
2. Hibernate - uses same power as "turned off" but left plugged in.

I like to use standby for laptops and hibernate for desktops. This provides a good combination quick start ups with practical power savings (in my opinion).

Hibernate is safe even with power cut wheras "standby" are safe for laptops because of batteries which desktops do not have.

Cheers from mike

Happen to know which it is for the 'sleep' mode on my Inspiron 531 dektop?

msun

You can usually choose what happens when you press that "sleep" button. This is done in "Control Panel" under the "power options" advanced tab (assuming you are using Windows XP)

superscaper

Personally I switch off the PC at night and then switch off at mains for PC, monitor and all its peripherals. The only effort it takes is pressing one button.