Power Usage

Fidelis

If I was to have my pc on nearly all day whether it be virus checking, downloading off the net or just doing nothing much, would it cost much for the the electricity being used.
I heard that the monitor uses the most energy so I could switch that off at times, but that asides, would it have an impact on the electricity bill ?

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Nil Desperandum

Gerry

to be honest, I used to think pc's used **** all power, but power supplies are not that efficient. i.e, a 200watt power supply uses 300-350watts to generate its 200watts, as some of that energy is converted to heat and lost. this is only a rough figure... But, power supplies arent always under full strain. People will say "but an athlon uses loads of power". Yes, it does, but thats only one part of the power supply, because it uses power from the 3.3v line. There is also the 5v and 12v line, which usually arent strained that much, unless you have loads of cd drives and hard drives which never spin down. I have to get me a multimeter, then I'll see exactly how much power me pc uses.

As a rough estimate, I'd say the average power usage with the monitor switched off is 300 watts, which is 2p an hour (roughly) 48p a day, £3.36 a week. This is a very rough estimate. If you have a top of the range pc, if its under maximum load, I'd say that could be drawing up to 800 watts, (including monitor) which would be rather more expensive. I leave my pc on 24/7, with the cpu under full load, and I dont think it makes a noticeable difference to the electricity bill