Computer electricity usage
I just discovered that I’ve left a light on, 24/7 for the last 10 years. And not one of those fancy new ones, one of the old fluorescent 100 watt ones!
It’s not really a light, it’s my computers. Even when everything is turned off, my computers and peripherals are drawing 104 watts of power. Somehow, 100 watts is just vanishing into thin air. That’s about 10 times more than I was expecting…
After extensive plugging in and unplugging, I found that my two desktop computers use about 20 W each, and my new laptop uses 20 – 30 W. Everything else combined (modem, router, printer, etc) make up the rest.
Now that I’ve turned on my laptop and 1 screen, I’m using a total of 140 W. If I give the computer lots of work to do, power usage goes up by only a watt or two.
The 2.4 Ghz desktop uses another 140 W or so and the 1Ghz desktop about 100 W.
Since the desktops have power supplies that can draw up to 300 Watts, I wonder if my electricity meter device is under reporting their usage. I expected them to use more when running and less when off! My figures for 100 W with everything turned off might be too small.
Kind of makes a mockery of attempts to save power by replacing all the old fluorescent bulbs in the house…
In any case, it looks like I’ll be switching things off at the wall a bit more often from now on!
