How much power would my computer consume?

SlaveToSilence · Post by **SlaveToSilence** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 3:23 pm

i am thinking about buying a little ~800mhz mini-ITX system to leave on 24/7 downloading to hopefully save on the electricity bill aswell as reduce the unbearable heat and noise produced by this monster (see signature)

my question is, approx how much would this system being drawing at idle, and how much would a little 800mhz Mini-ITX VIA c3 thingy draw?

im on a prepay meter and pay about 12p per KW hour, so if my pc was running at 500 watts (doubt its that much) it would be costing 6p per hour to run, Â£1.44 per day, about Â£525 per year, so even if its using 250watts its still over Â£250 per year, so if i was to spend Â£100 on an itx machine at <100 watts it would pay for itself in less than a year

not to mention the reduction in noise and heat!

would one of these 800mhz machines be good enough to run windows xp and internet explorer and msn and play mp3s too? (i usually have atleast 10 windows open lol)

what about playing avi/mpeg movies etc? and what about though a tv?

if not, are there slightly faster ones, maybe 1000mhz or so (its been so long since i ran on anything less than 2ghz!)

then i could just save this one for when i want to play games

Thanks very much indeed everyone

aaa · Post by **aaa** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:03 pm

Why not a simple laptop. Mine is running at 15w w/ a 1.5ghz Pentium; if you pick the right model you can get both performance and low power. If you get one without an LCD it might end up being cheaper too.

As for whether 800mhz's enough, you might get problems with certain types of videos, otherwise it'll work fine (obviously not as snappy but it can still get stuff done).

SlaveToSilence · Post by **SlaveToSilence** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 5:19 pm

15w? are you sure?
have you tested this with a watt meter? are you sure thats not with it drawing some power from the battery? if thats true that would be great, i have a 1.4ghz 512mb laptop here not being used which i could use instead. that would be great..
Just doesnt seem to add up, i've been reading about all these peopple making 800mhz computers about 20-30 watts, then you come along and state 15w for a laptop twice as fast

has anyone else put their laptop through a watt meter?

not saying i dont believe you, just a bit sceptical that it would be that easy, nothing's ever easy :p

aaa · Post by **aaa** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 5:54 pm

Just put it through a watt meter and it's bouncing from 17w-21w while I do things. The 15w was from a software utility. This varies on the model of course, I'm sure most laptops are in the 30-40w range. Pretty much anything that comes with a small 65w adapter should be 30-40w (30w for laptop + 30w for charging battery).

Slaugh · Post by **Slaugh** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 7:25 pm

aaa wrote:If you get one without an LCD it might end up being cheaper too.

You're telling me it's possible to find a laptop without a LCD screen?

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 7:27 pm

On the used market, sure. It may still physically have the screen... but don't be fooled...

mimwdv · Post by **mimwdv** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 5:27 pm

I've got an IBM thinkpad T43. It runs at about 17-21W with normal light use (killawatt meter). And if the screen goes off (ie after a couple of minutes of no input) it drops another couple of W.

Building a desktop that power miserly is hard, but I built a AU$450 system for my mum recently (AMD X2 4000+, ASUS mATX mobo, onboard graphics, notebook hard drive, PicoPSU) which was running at about 30W without any specific tweaking or undervolting other than running CnQ. The PSU is important - when I plugged a normal ATX PSU into it it almost doubled to 55W because the PSU was so inefficient at these low wattages.

Both machines in my signature idle below 100W - the server at ~90W and the HTPC at ~50W.