Leaving a PC on 24/7 and power usage

[Nimrod]

I've been doing some research recently, around the power use of computer systems. I'm very new to this, so my calculations could be totally wrong. But what I have done is looked at the watts my PC uses (using other sites with people who actually tested them, because I have no idea how) and tried to work out the rough cost of leaving it on 24/7.

My nettop (main PC) uses around 30watts idle, and around 40watts under stress, so I averaged it at 35watts. I looked up my monitor power use both idle (standby, which turns out at 0.30watts) and on with brightness at 50% (which it is). I then concluded I use it for roughly 10 hours a day on average over a week (somedays more, somedays like uni and work days less.) so I put that into calculation.

I then browsed the npower (my power provider) site and looked up the cost of electricity in my area (14p per kilowatt).

This is what I concluded would be the cost of leaving my nettop on 24/7:

Now, this isnt my actual use because ive recently set up S3 sleep on my nettop, and it now sleeps after an hour of non-use or when i go to uni/work/sleep where i actually put the device to sleep. Ive worked out it uses around 2 watts on S3 sleep so I may need to calculate that in.

But it would be interesting to know what other peoples power uses is, and if they have calculated it and so fourth. Also, hopefully someone more knowledgeable in this field could say if Im doing it correctly, or if im just confused. Most computing people never really think about power usage, so its interesting to know what people think when they caculated the cost themselves.

This is the site I used for calulating my figures: Electricity Cost Calculator

So whats your power use?

 

[paardje]

Silly question but what's a nettop?

 

[InsaneNutter]

A very small computer that is designed to use minimal power.

We had a topic on Digiex about them not so long ago: https://digiex.net/computer-discussion-help-center/2458-nettops.html

Ill fill in my power usage tonight.

 

[CurlySteve]

a nettop is a computer that uses the same hardware as a netbook but used as a small personal computer at home. a netbook is a small laptop (usially 9-11" screen) which mostly now uses intel atom processors.

 

[Titcher]

A nettop is play on words of settop, a computer intended to fit in with a home theater system.

 

[Dark Scyth]

I've come to the conclusion that my laptop uses 0 watts per day. So 0(watts) X 7(Days) = nothing. This is my current useage. When I can use my laptop i'll average it out and get an acctual estimate.

 

[InsaneNutter]

I have averaged that my Nettop is on for 10 hours a day, some days this will be more however some days it might only be on for an hour or two. I averaged the monitor as been on for 8 as it sleeps after my Nettop has been idle for 15mins and uses 2w when sleeping. As its only on about 10% brightness I would expect the monitor to use less than 42w though.

As my PC is custom built I honestly have no idea, I would guess its pulling at least 200w, i would need a device to actually test its power usage.

 

[BonezOz]

I tried to figure out how much my desktop would use on any given day, but due to the stupidity that is our electric company the price per KWh varies at any given stage of the day. We have peak and off peak periods combined with transition periods. And to top it all off during the peak period, right after everyone gets home from work, is of course the most expensive period of the day at almost $0.20 per KWh. Averaging out the costs, it looks like I spend around $2.00 per day running my PC, based on the 550W PSU running at peak 24/7, but that isn't right as it would only be doing this when it's under load, which isn't very often.