How much electricity does a PC use?

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Dreamnine
Dreamnine Posts: 8,370 Forumite
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I have a Compaq Evo desktop. It's used maybe 6 hours a day. Am I better to switch it off at the wall? I have just been putting it on standby.
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  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,037 Forumite
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    Most desktops average around 150 Watts when running - so something like 2p an hour.

    You can minimise this by setting it to hibernate after xx mins.

    Unless a PC is switched off at the wall they usually use a couple of Watts.

    There are loads of threads on MSE dealing with power consumption of PCs if you do a search.
  • Magentasue
    Magentasue Posts: 4,229 Forumite
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    I read somewhere that you should turn off the monitor when not using but to only turn a PC off if it is going to be off for 2 hours or more.

    http://www.sust-it.net/energy_saving.php?electricity=14&id=20

    Above website doesn't mention your pc but may give you an idea. Another option would be to borrow a plug in energy monitor.
  • Sally87
    Sally87 Posts: 54 Forumite
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    Cardew wrote: »
    Most desktops average around 150 Watts when running - so something like 2p an hour.

    I had no idea they took this much, I often keep mine on all the time, as I'm on and off it during the day (it takes forever to turn on again after being off) and download stuff overnight. For some reason I had the idea they took almost nothing to run :confused:

    2p an hour doesn't sound much, but that's about £14.50 a month if it's on 24/7. That's more than my monthly electricity direct debit + standing order :eek: I have a feeling I'm going to be in for a bit of a shock if I ever give them an actual meter reading...
  • greenbee
    greenbee Posts: 16,148 Forumite
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    We did some testing at work, and some versions of the Compaq Evo draw 26 watts when shut down (they don't shut down completely as they're configured to be woken up by the server). So I guess this is probably what they draw in hibernate (lowest energy mode). You can go into the settings and adjust them to that it uses less than in the default settings, but your best bet is to switch it off at the wall when not in use, and make sure you hibernate it when you're having a break rather than just letting it sleep.
  • exel1966
    exel1966 Posts: 4,978 Forumite
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    Constantly cutting the power supply to a PC/Laptop is not good for the system as the system components are put under far more stress at start-up/shutdown.

    It is far better to use the stand by/Hibernation feature.
  • mech_2
    mech_2 Posts: 620 Forumite
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    exel1966 wrote: »
    Constantly cutting the power supply to a PC/Laptop is not good for the system as the system components are put under far more stress at start-up/shutdown.

    It is far better to use the stand by/Hibernation feature.

    Exactly the same stresses occur when coming out of hibernation or sleep modes (thermal expansion/contraction, drives spinning up). You might as well turn it off properly and save the full amount of power consumption. If your PC is very slow to start up it's probably time to do a bit of tidying up on your system (disabling unnecessary software from loading on startup, defragmenting the hard disc drive, cleaning out defunct temporary files etc). Mine gets to a working desktop in about 45 seconds.

    My PC consumes 120 watts in general usage and my LCD monitor about 15. I'll often leave the PC on for long periods, but if I know I'm not going to be using it for at least 45 minutes I do shut it down. And if I go away for days or weeks I switch it off at the mains (it consumes 3 watts when just switched off from the button on the front) along with the broadband router etc.

    There was a time when I used to leave a computer on 24/7, but back then it only consumed 50 watts and I used to leave it downloading things overnight. I don't do that any more.
  • Sally87
    Sally87 Posts: 54 Forumite
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    mech wrote: »
    If your PC is very slow to start up it's probably time to do a bit of tidying up on your system (disabling unnecessary software from loading on startup, defragmenting the hard disc drive, cleaning out defunct temporary files etc). Mine gets to a working desktop in about 45 seconds.
    I do keep my computer clean and defragmented, etc., it's just very old and a bit slow.
    mech wrote: »
    My PC consumes 120 watts in general usage and my LCD monitor about 15.
    I'm curious how you know this, is it just from the computer manual or do you monitor it somehow?
  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,037 Forumite
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    Sally87 wrote: »
    I'm curious how you know this, is it just from the computer manual or do you monitor it somehow?

    Many people on this forum have 'plug in' power measuring meters.

    With these meters you can plug in any appliance that has a 13 amp plug and measure the instantaneous power consumption or the cumulative consumption over hours or days.

    It is this latter reading that is very useful as most appliances have variable consumption. For instance you can plug in your PC(with or without monitor) leave it for several hours and see how much electricity it has used.

    These monitors are quite cheap, sometimes as little as £6 from Lidl/Aldi and Maplins often have them on offer for about £10.
  • Poppycat
    Poppycat Posts: 19,913 Forumite
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    The average psu that comes with a pc is also very inefficient. You can get new psu abet at a considerable expense £45+ for a energy efficient 80%+ model though. Also the new Intel cpu's are more efficient and this will improve hopefully in time however the more better they get the more we want of them. You can also get energy efficient motherboard that close down certain parts when in phases that us eless energy but this can in some cases have an effect on performance although not much
  • saveallmymoney
    saveallmymoney Posts: 325 Forumite
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    Just to add the perhaps obvious, a laptop is MUCH more power efficient.
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