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Power-consumption

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AE35:

The PC's in the cabinets are all barebones...only HDD and mobo with
everything onboard!

We already changed all the lightbulbs in the house :)

I have a feeling that the main drop in usage will be from the normal PC not
running 24/7 anymore. Shut off while at work, and while we sleep.

Thanks!

Nicholas

FrizzleFried:
I just pulled a GOOGLE on the subject and a high-end gaming system running 24/7 a year,  consuming 330 watts the entire time (monitor never goes off,  running all out all the time),  consumes about $405 a year which breaks down to about $33.75 per month.   That seems a bit high,  especially considering I run not one,  but two computers 24/7 at my home,  one of them being a Mac G4 server and the other being my high-end gaming computer (though I do turn the monitor off).   My electric bill gets down to $45 some months...I doubt I am only consuming $12 on top of the single gaming computing running 24/7.

This is a little closer to reality I would think:


--- Quote ---Typical PC at home:

Computer running 4 hours per day with 17″ CRT on for 4 hours = $ 28.47 per year.
Computer running 4 hours per day with 17″ LCD on for 4 hours = $ 19.93 per year.

*Computer running 24 hours per day with 17″ CRT on for 4 hours per day = $ 94.90 per year.
*Computer running 24 hours per day with 17″ LCD on for 4 hours per day = $ 86.36 per year.

*The computers above that run for 24 hours are set to not sleep when they are not in use.
The figures shown above were calculated with a computer that uses 70 watts, CRT that uses 80 watts, a LCD that uses 35 watts, and an electric company that charges $.13 kWh which is as close as I can come to the national average. Check your bill to see what your being charged. A slight change in this number makes a big difference in the final numbers.

--- End quote ---

So lets round it off to close to about $10.00 a month for an average computer to run 24/7...or so...

BobA:
Sorry to be off topic.  Just a small divergence.  I have replaced all the bulbs in the house where I can with flourescents.  The house is only 2 1/2 years old so appliances are all energy star.   I have central forced air heating with night setback and no air conditioning.The square footage is 1700 in a split style.  I turn off all but one computer when not in use.  It is not turned off because it does HTPC stuff at night like compacting TV recordings and updating schedules.

My average monthly elect consumption is 850 kwh.   Just wondering how that compares.  I should also say that both my wife and I are home all day so there are no savings for turning the lights and TV off when you go to work.

lasersoup:
One more off-topic comment, thanks for thinking "green". I'll save the rant.

NOP:
For windows machines running 24/7, this is another possibly useful tool:

http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle

It slows down the clock going to the processor when the machine is idle.  Ideally the program is completely invisible to the user, slowing down the machine when the CPU load is light, and then jumping back to full speed when it gets busy again.

I have no idea what, if any, power savings there may be, but it does give me a warm fuzzy using it.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am the author of the program.  (it's freeware/open source so I'm not profiting from this ;D)

It was originally written to slow your machine down for games that run too fast, but it has taken on a little life of it's own as a power saver.

-jeff!

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