How much power do PC's use?

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ajobbins

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# 20698 3-Apr-2008 14:56

I've been using an old PC (AMD Athlon 2400+ XP [2Ghz]) with 1.5GB ram and a 420W PSU (I think?) for a while now and often wonder how much juice this is sucking being on 24/7. It also has a DVD burner and 2x IDE HDD's.

Can anyone provide any insight into this? If it's costing me $20 a month or less I will leave it on, if it is likely to be costing more I will swich it off when it is not in use.

3nvy

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# 120742 3-Apr-2008 15:14

It depends on the load that the PSU is going through. You can work it out by taking the max load of the PSU (430w) and taking the rate at which you are charged per unit of electricity and do the maths to work out how much you're paying per month/week etc.

If you're unsure how to go about this, I can take some fairly generic rates of charge and give you some ballpark figures.

ajobbins

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# 120743 3-Apr-2008 15:16

Ballpark figure would be good please. PC previously had either 250 or 300w PSU and ran fine. Only has a 420w as the old one died and this was the smallest I could buy, so I dount it is running at full load at any point.

HDD are set to power down when idle also.

3nvy

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# 120759 3-Apr-2008 16:08

This figure is based off Wellington electricity prices as set by Genesis Energy and the assumption the PC will be running at a full 300w load 24 hours a day. This really isn't realistic or practical, but without more information as to how many hours a day it's sitting idle etc, it's the best I can do:

Price for 1 months full load usage: $31.## cents.

ajobbins

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# 120761 3-Apr-2008 16:15

That's awesome. I can live with that.

3nvy

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# 120762 3-Apr-2008 16:17

No problem. In reality, remember it's going to be alot less than that. Likely to be around $20 a month or something. Not 100% sure though, its too hard to tell.

hellonearthisman

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# 120765 3-Apr-2008 16:28

I got a UPS from a box of stuff and was using it on my 550w vista box. It was only 180w but would work fine, unless I was running through fire in some dx10 game. Surfing and desktop work would not trigger the heavy load warning.

If you have a crt monitor then that's ya biggest drain, or half doz old hdds.

3nvy

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# 120767 3-Apr-2008 16:32

hellonearthisman:It was only 180w but would work fine,

There we go, could be even almost half of what I suggested! Either way, works out to be definately in your budget.

ajobbins

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# 120769 3-Apr-2008 16:35

Awesome. Probably 95% of the time it is sitting idle and probably 90% of the time the drives have powered down. Sounds good, thanks for your help everyone.

Filterer

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# 120801 3-Apr-2008 18:28

From what I understand an idle PC with no monitor is <100w - about the equiliant of a lightbulb

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