PC power saving

[Burgerman]

My PC is a new ultra modern design that I built to cut down on power usage. Yes its super fast etc, but thats not really the point. All modern PCs are fast enough.

Heres the thing. The previous one (base only) was anywhere between 250 to 600 watts depending on how it was configured while running. Thats with all power saving and throttling, etc on. And the 2x 30 inch dell monitors at 125 watts each not helping! It stays on almost always, as its my house server too although the monitors turn off. So that adds up to a huge bill.

New PC I built recently is super silent, and at idle, takes 48 Watts! This is how much better modern boards, CPUs, and power saving methods are. And at that its 5ghz overclocked, running at 1.4V. Yet it never even gets warm at full power. Water cooling and a huge 3 fan water radiator doesent let it.

The monitor, is now a 55 inch OLED TV... Its FAR better than the two dells. But heres the thing. Its way bigger than both. But if you have a black screen, and just a few icons, and a disapearing task bar, it takes just 16 Watts! You only pay for the pixels you light up. 105 watts with full white screen, and eyball burning level which you wont ever want. So having a massive monitor is estremely cheap, and saves about 220 watts over a LCD type display. And its superb!

So I now have a super powerful PC, with tons of memory, two M,2 super fast SSD drives that move gb per sec. and 6x 2GB laptop drives for backups etc. And it takes PC 48 + Screen 16 Watts at idle. 64 watts at idle. And it has a new trick. I can log onto it from the pub, or elsewhere in the house with my laptop or Remote Desktop, while its sleeping. It wakes up fast and i have my server again. So on top of this saving I now let it sleep after 10 mins. My laptop uses way more power! Upgrading to modern power saving stuff will be free long term! It pays for itself.

[expresso]

nice - i think i am the oppisite of you - i use alot more engery for sure - not on purpose i dont think - i got my Con Ed report on my usage - thats the Company we pay for our electric - according to them - i use 88% more than the Avg. person in my building - little they know most are over 80 years old and never turn on anything - they dont have wheelchairs to charge - batteries to make - Audio to play - TVs etc,

My Audio and TV plasma must use the most - my plasma can heat the room alone - my computer also is mostly always on now in the winter since i am home 99% of the time now with the cold -

oh and between the AC in the summer - and sometimes Heater in the winter before they start putting the heat - i have to be comfortable - and live - - at least all my ligth bulbs are LED - - 2 TVs are Led so not bad - but they are On ALOT all the time - the plasma only used when watching movies - and music pandora etc, i used to shut it off once i got the music going but i found that i keep wanting to change channels or artist so i leave it on now - let screensaver work -

have to wear it out or else have no reason for a new TV

[Gnomatic]

I upgraded my inkjet MFC printer to a laser one. My HP inkjet worked, and was fairly cheap to operate with aftermarket ink cartilages. However, it often would make tons of noise and take some time to get to printing when sent a task. And it often would get unhappy about something and stop what it was doing giving this or that error message. And normally I'd just tell the printer to carry on and ignore whatever it was throwing a fit about. It worked fine, but was very annoying. I've been waiting for it to DIE!

So I finally got tired of waiting bought a Brother DCPL2540DW MFC laser printer. Hooked it up yesterday to configure it. I had it plugged into the same battery backup my PC is plugged into. I turn it on, and everything plugged into that backup battery immediately shuts off, and the battery itself starts screaming, and didn't stop till I reset it.

So that led me to look up the power specifications for this laser printer. 1100W preak power consumption, which happens when its first powering on or coming out of deep sleep when sent a print task. It also consumes 500W while printing! My inkjet consumed about 1/10th that while printing.

Its very evident that the laser unit prints very crisp and sharp text. And its faster. But I was not expecting it to be such a power hog. I ended up plugging it into a different backup battery. It struggles when the printer wakes up but it handles it w/o going into protection mode.

[Gnomatic]

Further reading on this I see it is not recommended to plug a laser printer into a battery UPS because laser printers can draw LOTS of power, even if its just for brief moments.

I had no idea a laser printer could be such a power pig.

[Burgerman]

But you should plug it into a non ups socket. Not needed to be on a safe supply. I hate all printers.