# How much power does my PC consume?



## VDZx (Feb 23, 2008)

I usually leave my PC on from 7.00 to about 23.00/0.00, and now my dad's complaining that I should turn it off because of the costs because its power consumption.
However, I am always running a BitTorrent program, which I use to download and seed all the time (giving me a share ratio of 5.5, hehe ^_^). I also am logged in on MSN with MSN+, which causes it to log every event (people going on/offline, changing status/name/PM, etc), which allows me to see when somebody's been online and things like that.
So basically I want to keep doing those two things, especially BitTorrent downloading/seeding...so I have two questions:

1) At 'power management' (or whatever it's called, the power management feature in Windows XP Professional)...what can I turn off and still be able to do above two things?
At the moment, it only turns off the display (not sure how that's listed in English windows versions >.>).
The second option is to disable the hard drives, which I am currently not using. If I disable the hard drives, then that would mean I couldn't download/seed, right?
Third thing is stand-by mode, of which I'm not sure if it disrupts downloading/seeding. I'm currently not using it, just to be safe.
The last thing is the sleep mode which is essentially turning off, so that won't work. (I actually use this instead of turning the power off at 23.00/0.00.)

2) My second question is simply: how much power does my PC actually consume? I always turn the monitor and speakers off when I'm not at my computer, so those consume very little power.

My system:
According to dxdiag, my PC is an 'INTELR' 'AWRDACPI' (yeah, don't ask me)
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPUs) (which is odd, since it's a single core PC)
1022 MB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 (256 MB)
Realtek AC97 Audio (if that matters)
Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC

ST3160022ACE (um...that seems to be the name of my hard disk) {
149,05 GB (160.039.272.960 bytes)
19.457 cylinders
312.576.705 sectors
4.961.535 um...tracks is the correct translation, I think?
255 Tracks/cylinder }

TSSTcorp DVD-ROM SH-D162C
HP CD-Writer+ 8100

I also have a built-in "all-in-one" cardreader, and I usually have a Sitecom Bluetooth USB dongle connected.

I don't have one of those fancy thingies you can use to measure power consumption. There was this power consumption calculator on the internet as well, but that one's down...so I was hoping you could give me an estimate of how much power my PC consumes, and if any of the above power management features could be used without disrupting downloading/seeding, how much power my PC would consume with those features turned on.

Thanks in advance ^_^

[/walloftext]


----------



## speedster123 (Oct 18, 2006)

$1.88 per day if it isnt raining.


----------



## sobeit (Nov 11, 2007)

there is no way to answer your power question since consumption is based on usage, the time of day, the temperature of the room, the type of programs running, etc...


----------



## VDZx (Feb 23, 2008)

sobeit666 said:


> there is no way to answer your power question since consumption is based on usage, the time of day, the temperature of the room, the type of programs running, etc...


Ah, okay. I was hoping you people would be able to estimate how much my computer would use when just idle and having a BitTorrent client downloading/seeding, but I guess that's too difficult then ^_^
Do you know how much the average PC consumes when just idling like this? (Like, some estimate? 50W? 100W? 150W?)

But about my first question: am I using the optimal settings to save as much power as possible while still using a BitTorrent client?


----------



## sobeit (Nov 11, 2007)

did not answer the first questions because its against the rule of this forum to help with bittorrents. Please read the rules.


----------



## VDZx (Feb 23, 2008)

Oh...sorry for not reading the rules. Usually, the rules are always the same (no trolling, no flaming, etc), but this is the first time I've ever seen such a rule. Oh well. Thanks for at least pointing out that the question can't be answered that easily ^_^


----------

