Power useage on standby?

demon8991

demon8991

demon8991

Soldato
Joined
7 Jan 2003
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Gold Coast, Australia
See my rig below.

Regarding that setup how many watts do you think would be used when the sytsem is in standby?

How much would it cost to run in standby if let's say left for a week?

(When my comp goes into standby all HDD's turn off and fans stop spinning)
 
My rig consumes 6w in suspend to ram sleep and 4w on actual standby.

That's about 1-2p per day whichever way you look at it and is less than leaving a wireless router switched on.

Only really becomes expensive when you have loads of appliances on standby.
 
I was about to start a new thread until I saw this one. Just plugged a mains power meter into my HTPC. Machine is switched off, but plugged in and it's reading ~21W (same when I put Win 7 to sleep).

Thats with a Coolermaster Elite 460W. Tried swapping out with an OCZ GameXStream 600W (out of my gaming rig), thinking it could be an efficiency issue (cheapish vs mid range PSU). Roughly the same figure ~19W.

If I plug the PSU directly into the power meter with nothing attached to it, yes what ~19W to 21W.

Surely this is too high? Or have I made a school boy error with my power meter use?

I was hoping for under 10W standby (up to 5W if you believe the reviews on the net).

Any advice?

Goot :)
 
Remember when i was using an overclocked SLI 8800gtx and CPU at 4.2ghz with a watercooling setup my ide Power useage use to bounce between 300 to 320watts,and my dell monitor draws another 50watts on top of that..
and my rig use to be left on almost 24/7 :eek:



I always turn my rig off at night and when i go to work now unless am downloading a steam game or something else that big...;)

demon8991 said:
How much would it cost to run in standby if let's say left for a week?
Click to expand...
electricity normally costs around 12 to 14p per kw (1000watts per hour) in normal rate..
(Then saying that my electricity meant to go up about 20% in the last 12 to 18 months)
 
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Goot - 20W does sound a bit high but it could just be that your motherboard has higher standby requirements than some others. A lot of PSUs have very poor standby efficiency when compared with their overall efficiency but I wouldn't have thought this would account for that much. Perhaps you need to switch off at the mains when you switch off for the night or when you are away from your PC for an exctended time.

MikeHunt79 said:
You can use less power by using standby as you don't waste power waiting for your computer to boot up...
Click to expand...

Sure but if the differential between Standby and Suspend to Ram is 2w and considering it takes 30-45 seconds at idle power to boot then after just an hour or two this becomes more expensive.

2w over say 2 hours on Suspend to Ram would be an additional 4wh whereas a 1 minute boot at 200w would be 3wh.

Still I do like how my PC can wake in less than 10 seconds.
 
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Why not use both > Standby + Hibernate or Sleep + Hibernate

1-Standby or Sleep when your away for short periods.

2-Hibernate for overnight.
 
@Tealc - PSU on it's own just plugged into the power meter also shows high W levels which is confusing me.

Right, Power Meter: B&Q Airforce PM30. Plugged in, reset. Select 'W'. Plug PC in, but don't switch on: 21W (PC with Coolermaster Elite 460W)

Just tried a HP dc5800 desktop at work switched off (240W I think 80% efficiency PSU): 14W. Thought I'd see well under 10W.

I'm assuming the W function is correct, and I shouldnt be looking at KWH?
Faulty power meter?
 
KWh setting will count up over time and gives you an idea of cost over time.

It could be that your meter just isn't very accurate at the low end. Monitors often declare the standby power in their specs so try one. If a 0.5w monitor meters as 10w then you will know something is probably amiss with the meter. A mobile charger will also declare it's power usage at the secondary side so you can work out how much in watts that would be, more or less to give an indication.
 
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