Computer Power Consumption

[Kitsune]

If you have a computer with a 500 Watt power supply, does it always consume 500 watts of power?

[General Zod]

That's a bit like asking if a 100 horsepower car always puts out 100 horsepower.

[Zac Naloen]

It pulls what it needs up to a theoretical maximum of 500watts, at which point you are in danger of blowing a fuse or the unit.

[Mr Bean]

It pulls what it needs up to a theoretical maximum of 500watts, at which point you are in danger of blowing a fuse or the unit.

Unless you have a really good high quality power supply.

To your question no, a 500 Watt power supply is rated to provide 500 watts of power to your internal parts. In practice unless your SLI'ing or have more than four drives(CD or Hard) at best your pulling 380-430.

Most base computers(One HD, One Vid-Card, One DVD) will pull anywhere from 220-320. Depending mostly on your process or video card.

[Kitsune]

I am trying to come up with ways to save power in my household and trying to figure out how big a consumer of power my computers are.

How about when a computer goes into sleep mode?

[General Zod]

I am trying to come up with ways to save power in my household and trying to figure out how big a consumer of power my computers are.

How about when a computer goes into sleep mode?

Its usage will be minimal in sleep mode, but it will still be there. If you're wanting to save power, the best way would be to shut it down completely and unplug it to prevent any power drains at all when you're not using it. Of course, I'd recommend looking into areas besides the computer since their power use is trivial compared to the rest of the home.

[Ace Pace]

Its usage will be minimal in sleep mode, but it will still be there. If you're wanting to save power, the best way would be to shut it down completely and unplug it to prevent any power drains at all when you're not using it. Of course, I'd recommend looking into areas besides the computer since their power use is trivial compared to the rest of the home.

Sleep mode generally shuts most of the computer down but it has a minimal power profile. If you want to minimise computer power usage while keeping state, Hiberation (I forget whats the name under Linux) would be your best bet.

However, I agree with Zod. Look at differant things, such as Washer machines, water boilers and ACs before computers.

[The Grim Squeaker]

What "Hibernation"/power conservation mode (If any) would allow programs such as Utorrent (Bittorrent) to keep running and downloading? (For completely legal purposes, also automatic photo uploading via Flickr, Picasa and the like)

[phongn]

Buy this and then be enlightened.

What "Hibernation"/power conservation mode (If any) would allow programs such as Utorrent (Bittorrent) to keep running and downloading? (For completely legal purposes, also automatic photo uploading via Flickr, Picasa and the like)

If your CPU has the technology, let it throttle itself down when not under load.

[Bounty]

Hiberation (I forget whats the name under Linux)

Hibernate. At least that's what Ubuntu calls it...

What "Hibernation"/power conservation mode (If any) would allow programs such as Utorrent (Bittorrent) to keep running and downloading? (For completely legal purposes, also automatic photo uploading via Flickr, Picasa and the like)

Hibernation is the same as shut-down, the sole difference is that the contents of RAM is written to the hard drive and restored on start-up. You can't "run" anything while hibernating, as the whole computer is for all intents and purposes "off".

Since any BT client will need your PC to actually run, no hibernation or suspension is going to help you.

[Vendetta]

If you have a computer with a 500 Watt power supply, does it always consume 500 watts of power?

No. It produces 500 watts under maximum load. It consumes slightly more than that. You can probably find out how efficient it is and how much power is actually consumed from the manufacturer somewhere.

[Uraniun235]

Plus you can use it to measure other devices in the house.


How little power do you want your computer to consume? For $300 you could get one of these; the chip and mainboard would consume somewhere around 11 watts at absolute peak. Use a solid-state drive (could be as simple as a CF card hooked into an IDE adapter, or maybe even a USB thumbdrive) and your power consumption wouldn't be much higher.

Now granted you're not going to get top performance from such a system, but it would be more than adequate for office apps, basic internet browsing, playing music... and it would be pretty much silent and very low power.

[Darth Wong]

I have one of those Kill-A-Watt devices, and my computer consumes approximately 100 watts when idling, increasing to roughly 165 watts when it's running a compute-intensive application.

If you have a stylish domicile and you want to save power, go through your house and get rid of all the halogen lights. That will save you more power than rebuilding your computer.

[Questor]

I have one of those Kill-A-Watt devices, and my computer consumes approximately 100 watts when idling, increasing to roughly 165 watts when it's running a compute-intensive application.

I got one to use at work, and was temporarily mystified by the fact that when waiting for log-in, the computers used 100 watts, but once logged in, they used 60.

I eventually tracked it down to some housekeeping processes Novell uses when the computers are not logged in.

[Darth Wong]

I suppose I should admit that by "compute-intensive application", I meant "Medieval II Total War".

[Kitsune]

Most of you probably have flat screen monitors as well which I believe consume less power than the older CRT type monitors.

One reason I was asking was because one of my computers is almost always on as a music server.

Still, around 100 is not too bad...only equal to a couple of lightbulbs

[Xon]

Incandesant and halogen lights suck power like no one's business, you can get fluorescent lighting vastly cheaper and as long as you buy well, do not have the issues of old crappy fluorescenes from the 60s have. Using a drier, electric heater or electric ovan will also pull power down like crazy.

Those are easily the low hanging fruit to reduce your power consuption.

[Kitsune]

I have a regular over but I use a Toaster Oven for 90% of the stuff which requires baking.....

[Xon]

An electrical Toaster Oven? That sucker is going to guzzel down electrical power

[Kitsune]

An electrical Toaster Oven? That sucker is going to guzzel down electrical power

The heating elements are far smaller than a full sized oven's elements as well as using 120 instead of 240 - My stove is electric as well. It also is still on maybe 5% of the time. Some food just does not come out good in the microwave......

[Darth Wong]

An electrical Toaster Oven? That sucker is going to guzzel down electrical power

The heating elements are far smaller than a full sized oven's elements as well as using 120 instead of 240

I tested my electric toaster oven. It draws roughly 1600 watts.

My stove is electric as well. It also is still on maybe 5% of the time.

I tested my electric oven (using a clamp meter rather than the Kill-A-Watt, which can't be used with 240V appliances). A single large stovetop heating element uses roughly 2500 VA. The smaller ones use roughly 1000 VA, so if I have all four on (two big and two small), I'm using 7000 VA. The oven portion uses nearly 5000 VA, so it's possible to draw 12000 VA just by turning on all the parts of the electric stove. The phase angle is undoubtedly very small since these are simple resistive loads, so I would expect VA to translate directly into watts in this case.

Some food just does not come out good in the microwave......

One solution to microwave cooking problems is to overheat the food and then let it sit for five minutes. This tends to even out the heat distribution. Alternatively, you could get a convection oven; they use much more power than regular microwave ovens, but they cook faster than electric ovens.

PS. Just for the curious, a Nintendo Wii draws 65-150 watts. An XBox 360 draws 150-350 watts.

[Xon]

My desktop idles on the desktop at ~100watts, and kicks up to ~150-200 watts in graphics heavy games(aka Crysis with medium details, some at high). This includes the LCD monitor.

The fileserver used to pull ~80-90watts, but I've changed it's configuration a fair bit since I last checked (maybe added another 20-40watts of usage at most).

The room those computers are in used to have 3 halogen and an Incandesant light in. Changing those to fluorescenes is a vastly larger saving in power than anything else

[Kitsune]

I replaced most of the household light bulbs already with fluorescents. Almost all the rest are in ceiling fans and planning to replace them next payday if the bulbs are still on sale at home depot.