how much power does a computer consume?

[BigCletus]

I am wondering if leaving my pc on for long periods is a bad idea if it uses a lot of power...I have one 133 mhz box that is my router (no monitor) and another box that is a pII 266mhz that is my web server (no monitor for that one either). These are always on. Is this a waste of power? Thanks.

[SuperHornet]

The power supply on your box determines how much power it is capable of supplying.
IE 230Wats.

What actually gets used is determined by what equipment you have in the box.
IE CPU fans, Power supply fan, Case fans, Hard Drives etc...

I’m sure that there is some big mathematical calculation to find out how may Watts you used per hour, but I ran 8 servers in my house with only a 10% increase in power bill.

[DMR]

Originally posted by SuperHornet:
<STRONG>I'm sure that there is some big mathematical calculation to find out how may Watts you used per hour</STRONG>Yup, there is, but it's really simple:

- Your utility company bills you at a ceratin amount per kilowatthour.

- Your appliances are rated in terms of Watts, (and that rating is the maximum that they can consume).

- kilowatts are thousands of Watts.

- kilowatthours are calculated by multiplying the kilowatts a device consumes by the hours it has been in use.

So we have the following for calculating (maximum) cost:

$$ to utility company= (cost per kilowatthour) x (power rating of device in Watts/1000) x (hours device is in use)

For example, if your utility company charges $0.10 per kilowatthour, your computer has a 300W power supply, and you leave it on for 24 hours, your maximum cost per day will be:
$0.10 x (300/1000) x 24= .$.72

[ 20 March 2002: Message edited by: DMR ]

[SuperHornet]

TY for the info.

[rdeschene]

You're quite right about that maximum cost calculation but, as you say, that's the MAXIMUM cost not the actual or typical cost.

If your P.C. has a 300W power supply, it is not going to be running at 300W 24hrs a day for every day of the month. Actually, it may never pull 300W, depending on what hardware you have in the case and what you programs are running, and how intensely. A router or firewall P.C., for example, has minimal disk activity, probably no CD-ROM activity and CPU activity only "as required by the load". I believe there are Linux boot floppies that allow you to do this on a system without a HD, for that matter - it can be that minimalistic...without a GUI of course. ;-)

[scanez]

There was a thread about this not too long ago (a month ago maybe?). Try a search and see if anything pops up.