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"Between my server and my Windows Media Center home theater PC, I have at least two PCs on all the time at home. Have you ever wondered how much it's costing you to leave a computer on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?"
The first thing you need to know is how much power your computer draws. The best way is to measure the actual power consumption. You'll need a $30 device like the Kill-a-Watt or Seasonic PowerAngel to do this accurately. Once you get one, you'll inevitably go through a phase where you run around your home, measuring the power draw of everything you can plug into a wall socket. For example, I learned this weekend that our 42" plasma television draws between 90 watts (totally black screen) and 270 watts (totally white screen). Based on a little ad-hoc channel surfing with an eye on the Kill-a-Watt's LCD display, the average appears to be around 150 watts for a typical television show or movie.
Well my computers have always provided the heatsource for my room which I used to jokingly say saved on the heating bill. Five or six months ago however my father wanted to see how much electricity I was using so I ran all the machines through a single mains socket (via a load of multisocket extension cables) and it showed around 940w with both monitors at a neutral grey. I found the number jumps up to around 1.4kw when I have my preamp, 860w amp, 4 110w speakers, 3 45w tweets and 330w sub cranking out some bassy minimal dub (which seems to use the most power due to the sub and mids going nuts).
Determination of the cost of leaving your PC on was fully explained in previous posts (thanks for that!), but here's an article to read if you are interested to know how much you can save if you don't leave your PC on overnight:
From Microsoft's Monte Enbysk:
Quote:
For many years now, I've been shutting off my computer at night. But I'm now convinced you can leave your computer on at night and still conserve as much energy.
If you're a Windows user (Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Me), just set up your PC to "hibernate" overnight. "Hibernate" powers down your monitor to about 5 watts of energy and your PC to 2.3 watts -- virtually the same as turning your PC off (your monitor uses zero watts when turned off; more on this below). Either way, you save as much as $90 a year in power costs compared to a PC left on with a 3D screen saver running.
"Well, duh. Welcome back from the Disco Era," many of you are thinking. You already knew all this.
Maybe so, but the question keeps coming up, year after year: Should you shut your computer down at night or leave it running? Some time ago, I touched on the issue in a previous column -- I essentially passed on the recommendation of the good folks at Energy Star, a product-labeling program sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, that "if you are going home for the day, turn it off."
"Andy in Austin" triggered my interest in revisiting the subject by raising the question in tech guru Kim Komando's weekly e-mail newsletter. "Should I shut my computer down at night? Or is it better to leave it running?" he asked. Komando's response, in a nutshell: "The truth is, it really doesn't matter."
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