Power Consumption

[The Real Bingo]

I leave my computer on pretty much 24/7. I was just wondering how much power it uses per day in relevance to a 100 watt light bulb, or something compareable like a refridgerator. I'm just wondering if my leaving the computer on all the time is using up a lot of power which results in a lot of money on the electric bill?

[Bovon]

Certainly more than 100 watts, but I would think less than a refridgerator. If I knew the amperes the 120 volt circuit consumed, I could calculate the watts by P = E * I, where P is in watts, E is the voltage (120 VAC) and I is the current drawn..which would be probably around 3 amps..so..the wattage should be around 300 ~ 400 watts

[bailey]

I have meetered several systems and all are less that 100 watts
when the system is in use and surfaceing the net, it can go as high as 175 watts, but idle not doing anything it runs at about 75 watts.

[MrPurple]

The PC itself does not use too much power and I am guessing that all system will idle around the same wattage, but the wattage while in use depends on the PSU rating.

The big that that will drain your juce is a CRT monitor, so that would be the thing to turn off when not in use.

[bailey]

Originally posted by MrPurple
The PC itself does not use too much power and I am guessing that all system will idle around the same wattage, but the wattage while in use depends on the PSU rating.

The big that that will drain your juce is a CRT monitor, so that would be the thing to turn off when not in use.

in reality that is not true, the rateing of the power supply has nothing to do with how much the system will use.
hard drive activeity cpu use, ram use all contrubute to power use, the power use will be the same weather it is a 300 watt supply or a 400 watt supply.

the wattage we are talking about is the watts draw on the 120 volt line feeding the system power supply, ac not the dc watts

I use a labratory power unit to measure the volts, amps and the watts in use at ther same time.