Ridicules electricity bills coming in since I moved in to my flat.

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Soldato
Joined
2 Dec 2006
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Hey well I've been living in this flat at uni since september and we have a sort of "pay as you go" electricity meter so it's very clear how much we get through. We used to get through about £10-£12 a week. But I moved in with my new pc and now we are getting through £3 a day.

Naturally I'm going to get the blame very soon but this is surely impossible. I have not done any gaming since I moved in apart from the odd 30min session a few times so my pc is generally running idle. All that has changed is my pc and the fact we now have no xbox's in the flat. We used to have 2 xbox's with one of them almost always being on so that should mean less electricity surely?

My old pc:

Q6600 @ 3.4ghz
285GTX

etc etc.

New pc 2500k @ 4.5ghz (running 1.6ghz due to being underclocked when idle almost all the time)
480GTX.

Same amount of hard drives etc.


So guys, is it possible my pc could be causing it or has our meter broken or something? At this rate we are going to go bankrupt we are burning through money so fast. I would put it to the test by turning my pc off for the day but I need it to revise as i've got exams every few days now till june the first.

Has anyone else had this before and how would you go about getting it sorted?
 
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Did you change the psu??

One of the things we noticed at my old flat in Belfast was that when one of the guys was about our electricity usage was much higher as his 40gig ps3 was on 12-14 hours a day (he sort of lived on cod, it wasnt cool). So much so we tried to have a talk about it one day but you cant really confront addictive personalities sometimes...

Anyway revise at uni with your pc off at home?
 
12/7 is £1.70 a day. You've moved in and it's added another third to the bill so £3 a day doesn't sound odd to me (I pay £90 a month which is also £3 a day).

Electricity prices have also gone up 20% since last Sept - what were the unit costs you were paying in Sept compared to now (still applies to a pay meter - unit rates are sometimes on the LCD panel on the meter).

Oh, and it's "ridiculous" - I thought someone was deriding your electricity bill from the title.
 
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When I was living in my flat in London with 1 PC on 24x7 and 2 others on for atleast and hour or 2 a day I only used ~£1 a day :S
 
Just look at the meter. It's not rocket science. Either they are billing you for the amount used or they aren't. Not really sure what this payg thing is about, but if it's anything like being on a meter then sometimes they will bill you using an estimate, which would be calculated from previous bill history, all you have to do is give them the actual meter reading (only if it is less than the estimate) and you will get a new adjusted bill.

Bear in mind though, electricity isn't cheap if you rape it. A single tumble dry costs about £1 believe it or not.

Also, that poor xbox being on constantly :(
 
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amigafan2003 said:
12/7 is £1.70 a day. You've moved in and it's added another third to the bill so £3 a day doesn't sound odd to me
Click to expand...

Take his average of £11 a week, £3 a day is a 100% increase which is not so undersatandable.

It could quite simply be a case of 'revision time'. Everyone is in the house more or less all the time using their laptops and pc's. Most of term time you will be out at uni, or the pub, not using the leccy.

Give it a month and nobody will be in the house for 3 months though, so that should be a nice break from bills.
 
From what I remember a 480gtx has better idle usage than a 285gtx, unless you're using two screens or your overclocking is set up in a way that it auto applies and so is at full speed/voltage all the time, won't be "full load" power but won't be the 20-30W idle it should use.

In general Sandybridge power usage idle, load and overclocked is freaking awesome.

For identical computer, on a single screen, without a change in screen I'd expect your new computer to use less power than the old one to be honest.

New tv's in the house, new monitors, as above, is everyone just using their laptops all day long with power connected which generally will put a laptop in full power mode?

Hot water turned on too much, if its an immersion heater then they can eat a ridiculous level of power.
 
Are you using a landlords coin meter, or an electronic key you top up at a pay point?
 
sounds right to me, yes your pc is using a lot of it, its roughly a 3rd of the total usage.
get an energy meter and it'll tell you how much an item is using and the cost per day and per month. then you can calculate everyones usage e.t.c
 
buy a socket meter to guage how much each item in your house uses, then switch off the non essentials that eat power on standby or idle , easy
 
Yes buy a meter. My PC which has a 970 @ 4.4ghz and gtx 480 SLI ( all water cooled ) I use no where near that much, my pc uses about 250-350 watts when browsing the net and that's with a 30" screen on all the time.
 
Machine in sig is 200w idle, 480w load.

24 hours idle would be just under 5kwh, or 60p, 24 hours load about £1.50.

Get a socket meter.
 
I see guys. Just to make it clear what I meant was a few months back we were on 10-12 quid a week. Now I've moved back in with a new pc instead it's on £3 a day. I don't mean it's increased since when I wasn't here as that is obvious.



And cheers guys I'll look into the suggestions.
 
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