electric bill and my pc....

[sweeper2]

quick question here and hope it doesn't turn out to be a stupid one at that...here it goes..

just got my electric bill and wow, it's really high...so, i just redid my pc about mid Dec. through mid Jan. If I leave it on all the time, but the monitor shuts itself off, how much electric am I actually using, Is it worth it to shut it off every time I don't use it. I am connected to the internet all the time and have certain scheduled programs that run, some at night and some during the day when i am at work. Here are my specs.




My pc specs: Athlon XP 2500 @ FSB 200 X 11= Athlon XP 3200 , K7N2 Delta L nForce 2 chipset 400 edition MSI , Radeon 9600 Pro 128 mg , 512 mg DDR 333 PC2700 dual channel 1:1 with FSB=400 (2X256=512) , Soundblaster Live 64 , Maxter 13 gig Hard Drive , cd-rw, cd-rom drives , 450 watt Power supply , chieftec dragon mid-tower case beige , 5 case fans: (3) 80 mm fans , (1) 92 mm fan , (1) pci slot 3200 rpm fan , Aeroflow VA4-C7040 heatsink and fan , Thermaltake memory heatsink & heat spreaders , Sony Multiscan E400 Trinitron 19" CRT monitor , Gateway 56K modem , ethernet cable modem

any help would be appreciated..thanks!!!

[brandon184]

I doubt your system is to blame.

Those who shut their PC off when they're not using it versus those who leave their system on all day will notice a very minimal difference in their power bill.

- Brandon

[FreakyOCR]

Enter my Dad. He disagrees. He calculates the cost of everything in the house.

He says that when I moved back in with my 2 computers and large 19" monitors, his bill jumped.

As long as it sleeps, it's all good. But if it doesn't sleep and stays on full bore, it will eat a lot of juice. Adn everything adds up.

I have 3 printers, a reciever, cd player, vcr, 24" tv, 14 production monitor, professional vtr, fax, and occasionally a 3rd computer and 19" monitor.

That's probably why. PC's do you quite a bit of juice. We did a test: When we shut off at night we DID notice a difference. (Albiet there are 4 computers) but we did. And hey, it saves you money, so why not?

Oh, if you have scheduled stuff, just schedule them all on the same night, then leave it on overnight that one night. Problem solved!

[brandon184]

A jump in the bill there is understandable... You're talking about quite a bit of stuff there, in comparison to a single system and an individual monitor.

When I say subtle changes in the bill - I'm talking about ~$5 per month. When you multiply that by 4 or 5... Yes, I can see that being a huge jump.

Configure your PC to use the necessary power management features... They do a lot more than you may think.

- Brandon

[elroy]

I run at least one machine all the time and others as needed. If it brings down the power grid, oh well they'll just have to learn to deal with it. Cause I'm not shutting my computer off !

[Beemer]

Here's an appliance calculator for ya.

https://ewb.bchydro.com/hep/appcalc/pg1.asp?ID=0

Cheers!

[sweeper2]

Originally posted by Beemer
Here's an appliance calculator for ya.

https://ewb.bchydro.com/hep/appcalc/pg1.asp?ID=0

Cheers!

according to the calculator, my computer used most of the power!!!!! ahhhhhh

tested lights, dryer, washer,

I use a 450 watt power supply, does my pc actually use 450 watts??

I actually put it in hibernate, hard drive and system shut down in 1 hour and monitor after 15 minutes... will see how that works.....

[RamonGTP]

PC's can contribute to a significant portion of the bill... Especially powerfull ones running any type of DC projects.

And no, unless you're running multi processors with a few gigs of ram, and a large 15k rpm SCSI raid array, your computer shouldn't be using 450watts. I hooked up a multimeter inline with my PC's power cord to measure the current draw, and them multiplied that by the voltage (at the time it was 117 i believe) and put as much of a load on the PC as possible and it only drew a maximum of about 250watts.

So if you're paying say 10 cents per kilowatt/hr that averages out to be 60 cents a day which is about $18 per month. (if i messed up somewhere in the math, please correct me) Keep in mind this is at a full load scenario. But also keep in mind this does not take into account the times the monitor IS on, nor does it take into account any other computer accories you have that may require power either.

My systems specs are:
2500+@3200+
Radeon 9800 Pro
7200 RPM HDD
DVDRW
DVD
1GB RAM
2 CC lights
6 case fans (not including 2 on the PSU)
5 PCI cards

So its a pretty fully loaded system.

So basically if you really want to find out how much you're paying a month to leave the PC on... Simply find out the current draw and multiply it by the voltage. Then find out what your electricity rate is and do the math.

[sweeper2]

ok, thanks...

[Bill in SD, CA]

Originally posted by sweeper2
just got my electric bill and wow, it's really high...

Did we have Xmas lights up in December?

My December bill went up $175.



Bill