Avi

I'm getting a bit of an ear bashing for leaving the PC downstairs on all night so that i can use the internet connection sharing upstairs , how much power does it actually use... more importantly, how much is it costing me? (The monitor is off)

Cheers

Andy

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Never actually looked at what an 'average PC' pulls power-wise. But this may or may not help. I run A Dell Poweredge 4200 server at home 24/7 and there has been no noticeable increase in bill over the last year, at least in my case. 700watt PSU, Dual CPU, 3 SCSI controllers, 2 LAN cards, 9 SCSI drives (you really dont want to see how they fit in there!), DDS backup and CDROM.

Worth it for a little bit of lecky!

Cheers,


Nick.

Avi

Cheers

I'll print this out.. perfect ammunition for the enemy !!

Blow Dog

I heard that a PC burns as much energy as 2 lightbulbs.

IWatkins

My 'standard' desktop has a 300watt power supply. Whether it actually draws this when it is just sitting there, not doing much, I have no idea.

Best bit was I was reading through the docs that came with my newish high-end graphics card. Says it can draw up to 50 watts on its own and hence needs the special AGP slot (AGP 50 ?). Thing is as you wind up the work the card is doing you can hear the fan speed up

All above is no help at all.

Cheers

Ian

BarryK

I think you'll find by far and away the biggest drain is the monitor. Mine (19") uses 120watts when in use, ie two lightbulbs of 60W.

Other than that it is trickle stuff when it's not in use, around 10 watts tops.

You could always try juggling with the power management stuff, which is designed for exactly what you describe.

But it's probably not worth it.

Oh and just so you can't print this out as evidence, they can go on fire you know!