I loled irl.
Cost of Using a Laptop, compared to Desktop PC?
- Thread starter alanjw
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I loled irl.
I got mine from http://www.theowl.com/shop/index.php?target=products&product_id=6 but I think you can get them on ebay and the like. Its about £35 regardless as far as I am aware.
They do a USB thing that you can plug into a computer to record data, but it has to be plugged in constantly as it doesnt store data, its just a USB reciever. Apparently they are releasing one this year that will store data so you can just plug it in periodically. That will alllow you to see and track when you are using the most energy etc without leaving a compputer on to do it.
And I was wrong earlier, its not £20 a month but £30. My apologies. My bill is £20 because we are about £200 in credit. The other figures I mentioned however are correct.
If you get one, you just clip one bit around one of the leads from the meter to the fuse board and then you just pair the transmitter and reciever. Follow the instrustions to put in your rate and it'll do the rest from there. It'll tell you how much you are using right this second, how much on this day, how much yesterday, how much this week and last week, last month, this month, last quarter, this quarter and I think this year. It'll give you those measurements in KWh, £ or pile of carbon.
At £30 a month we use about 250KWh a month. Those of you at 30 a week are using around 1000KWh!
Associate
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Will look into buying one, once I have the money 
I want to replace my D600 with a nice Atom + ION or GMA4500, but I don't want to pay for it
I'd go for a CULV chip myself. 3x+ the CPU power (which means more CPU power than your D600 - unlike the usual Atom). You could always turn off one energy saving lightbulb to compensate (probably more than compensate).
Yea laptops use significantly less power than a desktop, especially if you have a graphics card in your desktop. Just the other week I measured my usage for my laptop and desktop using one of those electricity monitoring plugs with the LCD screen.
My Laptop with a dual core atom and on-board gfx uses 30w when idle and around 45-50 under load.
My desktop with a core i7, graphics card, three hard drives and two LCD screens uses 320w idle and around 360w under load.
Oh and having a desktop and other devices on standby I found uses about 3W each, not much but if you have quite a lot of devices on standby it can start to add up.
My Laptop with a dual core atom and on-board gfx uses 30w when idle and around 45-50 under load.
My desktop with a core i7, graphics card, three hard drives and two LCD screens uses 320w idle and around 360w under load.
Oh and having a desktop and other devices on standby I found uses about 3W each, not much but if you have quite a lot of devices on standby it can start to add up.
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Soldato
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Oky, I have a very different question to ask, not to call into question the amount of power the op is getting, but where the hell is he getting a unit price of 7.7p?
I am with NIE, and as we currently have no alternative suppliers the unit cost here is 14.31p per unit before the 5% VAT, and thats with a 4% discount for paying by monthly direct debit.
What unit costings do other folks pay? I knew we were getting ripped, but never to the amount of double what you lot pay.
I am with NIE, and as we currently have no alternative suppliers the unit cost here is 14.31p per unit before the 5% VAT, and thats with a 4% discount for paying by monthly direct debit.
What unit costings do other folks pay? I knew we were getting ripped, but never to the amount of double what you lot pay.
Unfortunately yes, electricity prices in NI is ridiculous and it's to do with NIE and their monopoly. However very recently it has been announced that NIE will have to allow other suppliers to use their lines, and there has been an organisation setup to regulate it etc. So it's looking good for the future and hopefully we will see some competitive prices. Airtricity an electricity supplier for Ireland are going to be a new supplier I've read on a few websites.
Why such a small difference between idle and load? I have 100w between mine.
Soldato
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My system is all running thru a monitoring meter.
At rest it sits around 340W, i7, 12gb ram, 4 discs, 24in dell, 7.1 speakers, printer, router, cable modem, external drive.
Under full burn it'll go up to 480W, everest reports the CPU wattage going from 12W to 54W, not sure how accurate that part is.
I reckon with the amount of usage I have, coupled with NIEs ridiculous unit costings, my PC costs me £150 a year to run in electricity.
At rest it sits around 340W, i7, 12gb ram, 4 discs, 24in dell, 7.1 speakers, printer, router, cable modem, external drive.
Under full burn it'll go up to 480W, everest reports the CPU wattage going from 12W to 54W, not sure how accurate that part is.
I reckon with the amount of usage I have, coupled with NIEs ridiculous unit costings, my PC costs me £150 a year to run in electricity.
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I didn't test it under 100% load, just played a HD video and also a HD you tube video and it only went up a bit. I really just tested what I would normally use the computer for like browser, video and music on etc. I shouldn't have really called that load