How much does it cost...?

jmc · - Joined: 12 Oct 2003 Posts: 34

... to run a pc permanently? (in the UK?).
My wife is convinced that running my server 24/7 is costing us a packet! But I've seen figures which reckon that running a modern pc permanently should cost anything between 3-10p per day. Exactly how much power does a running pc use?
Has any UK-based user done the math for this? And can you explain it to me so I can point out the error of her ways? LOL.
John Mc

k1ll3rdr4g0n · - Joined: 04 Jul 2004 Posts: 609

I would just get broadband/DSL and run it off that because all you would have to is pay per month for the DSL and electricty should be pretty cheap. XD
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senshi · - Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 385 Location: UK

A TV will use 50-80% of your annual electric bill.

I have run several machine and as many as 5 machine at one time on the internet 24/7, I ditched TV about 5 years ago, watch the girlfriends, I have 1 machine that is on 24/7, never off and this baby is rebooted about every couple of weeks, which takes a matter of 30 seconds.

It costs me about £25-30 a month for all my electric, thats lighting, the alarm system, Hi-Fi and a couple of PCs', the cable modem, the router and one PC Monitor, the KVM switch draws it power from the individual machines.

I basically allow £1 a day for electric, which is hard for me to use as I dont have a TV, if I did I would be using about £2.50-3 a day.

Does that answer your question?

BTW, a friend of mine is a fire risk assessor for a big insurance company and he assured me that your more likely to have a house fire arise from the washing machine than your PC and your TV has more chance of catching fire than your PC monitor or computer. So the fire risk one is out the window.

From expwerience though, invest in some ultra quiet fans or a niffty warter cooed system. Fan noise get on yours trulys well and truly if you catch me drift, but IM hard core and use ear plugs!

mg66 · - Joined: 15 Aug 2004 Posts: 85 Location: USA, Illinois

If your web server is seperate to your PC then turn the monitor off. I almost never have the monitor turned on, on the server. I connect to the server remotely from my gaming PC or from work. When I backup the server I only go into the spare room where the server is to swap out the CD r/w.

A friend actually does not have a monitor on the server, he does everything remotely.

I have seen more monitors let the smoke out than components in the tower itself (ie PSUs, fans etc).
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mg66

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woody03 · Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:47 pm Post subject:

Foxified · - Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 487 Location: Canada

erskie · - Joined: 16 Jan 2004 Posts: 31 Location: ALL over

There are many ways to connect remotely to a pc - personally I simply use the remote pc connection option under accessories-communication in windows xp. I only ever do so from my home LAN from the gaming machine, so that I do not have to open up another port on the web-server for telnetting or anything complicated.

thus the web server is a simple box with only a couple of ethernet cables and a power cable going to it. I replaced all the fans with big heat-sinks, and it is not as if my server gets all that much activity, so I imagine that it does not draw much power. Not tested it yet, as I have not inserted an ampmeter into the equation yet, but this way I can pretend it uses very little juice and live in denial.
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'Smile', he said, 'things could get worse...'

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mg66 · - Joined: 15 Aug 2004 Posts: 85 Location: USA, Illinois

Thats exactly what I do Erskie. Remote desktop is as good as anything. My router has a firewall so had to do a port forward for external connections. And internally I just allowed access to a specific port on the software firewall.

I pay the electric bill so I figure I can plug in what I want but realistically a pc cant be pulling that much.

Did a quick (very quick) search on google and found these links ....

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html
http://www.iceteks.com/articles.php?act=view&article=pcwattage&p=1&
http://www.energymenu.com/basics.html

One article says it cost $75/year for a PC to stay on 24/7. Lets says no monitor is on so we take say a 1/3 off . Now we have $50/year which equates to $4.16/month. Now that's pretty cheap entertainment these days dont you think. You cant rent a couple of new release videos for that :)
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rick0161 · - Joined: 01 Aug 2004 Posts: 4

senshi · - Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 385 Location: UK

Anonymoose · - Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 2192

senshi · - Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 385 Location: UK

you are missing the point. A TV, any TV with standby will use 85W if rated as that & uses JUST AS MUCH when left in stand by, so do the Math NOW.

I only can report a fact that since ditching my TV, my annual bill has fallen 75-80% no getting around that fact as IM the one putting the money in to the thing. If I hadnt got a pre-pay meter and had a credit meter as before, I wouldnt have had a clue as to how much I pay but seeing as IM checking ever other day as to the amount of credit I have left, the average is around 70p-£1 a day for EVERYTHING electrical I run.

On the other foot, my girlfriend still has her TV and she hardly is on her PC and has a nice TV which chews up loads of lekkie and she put in £12 a week on average, she is also on a pre-pay token meter too...

Anonymoose · - Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 2192

Both a TV and a PC use around 5-10w in standby mode, however, your PC is more likely to be on and idle which kicks it right back up to 100w or more.

Keep trying.

senshi · - Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 385 Location: UK

You dont get it, IM stuffing the credit in, I see the figures, I know what I run and I dont have a TV, the FACT still remains their was a plumet of over £700 notes in my average annual bill.

Seeing as the only difference between then and now is the lack of one TV, I cant for the life of me see understand how IM saving so much electricty, maybe you could help me, as IM at a loss to account for the saving.

Maybe my toaster was using it all! Someone is crediting my meter for me, I cant say but all I know is from kicking out that idiot box called TV, IM saving a huge packet, well a City Break in some exotic part of the world....

Anonymoose · - Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 2192

Perhaps your TV was broken, or you were living in a small time tunnel.

£700 saving would mean a cost of around £2 a day to run a TV. Let's assume you didn't have it on 24 hours a day, maybe 8 hours. That's 25p an hour, or by my reckoning a 4000w TV. Must have been fun watching films at your house :D

Perhaps you should look elsewhere for the source of your savings, or at least some of them...

senshi · - Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 385 Location: UK

Well dont forget to count the Video (30w), DVD player(35w), HiFi (55w)system also to account for and not forgetting the Cable decoder(15w).

Assuming the TV was 85w like yours, in a 24 hour period... 5,400Watts

An easily achieved target.

Anonymoose · - Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 2192

Except that you don't watch the TV for 24 hours, or watch the DVD and VCR at the same time, etc etc.

The 4000w figure was how much power you'd have to use in an hour to achieve 25p/day electricity costs with only a few hours of use...

hubson · - Joined: 10 May 2004 Posts: 94 Location: Coventry

ok I have 5 tv's, 3 dvd's, washing machine, Deep Freezer, fridge, microwave, 2 videos and 2 computers and I pay £20 a month on electricity...

amonia · - Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 45

Crazy people.

A PC uses not much than 25-40W per hour!!! That is nothing! A server 30-45W per hour!

The monitor is something diffrent - 120-170W per hour.(CRT - catod ray tube monitor). And this is still nothing. If you turn off your monitor it will be 0W per hour - but you will see nothing!!!!!!!

A TV uses somewere between 70-150 W/h - mainly depending from the size of the TV itself. And this is nothing. If the TV is in standby mode - 1.5-5 W/per hour max.

The thing is not to economize electricity - becouse the life is short. And we all end in grave. That is the biggest economy of all - no PC,TV and no electricity no nothing!

Anonymoose · - Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 2192

HAHA. 40W per hour. Are you using a 486 ?

senshi · - Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 385 Location: UK

looking at my meter, I can see the figures. based on the average person from a recent article that show the average child watches upto 6 hours of TV, then assuming mom or the house keeper has TV on for 8am, you then have the period through out the day that the TV is on, it will be on in the average household for anything upto 18 hours a day. base that on 85watt tv at the rate I pay for electric make is £1.16 a day alone for the TV, my TV was a bigger TV and used lots more electric than that. WAIT... What about the playstation/gamecube/xbox/sega games consoles? you need a TV to use them, another hidden cost, just because you dont watch TV doent mean that your usage drops off.

If you have a credit meter (where someone from an agency or electric company reads your meter) you will have very little contact with your meter, which in itself masks the usage as your not in constant contact with your meter, if you would like to turn everything off in your home, unplug everything that uses electric except your TV, leave it in stand by and go to your meter and look at it... then turn the TV in and watch that meter start clocking up the digits.

So the rate you pay will have a bearing on how much it costs, all I can report is that since I ditched my TV the cost of my annual bill plumeted by over £700 a year, no way of getting around that fact seeing as muggins ere was stuffing the meter tokens into the meter, first thing that I noticed was I was stuffing in £5-7 a week and not the £20 a week I used to put in.

thats a £13-15 a week difference.

like I keep saying over and over, I can only report my own consumption, the figures based on what I use to have and what I now have, the difference being some £700 a year for an idiot box called TV.

amonia · - Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 45

Some math:

85W per hour * 24 hours/1000 = 2.04kW/h

So for 1 day 85W TV is 2.04kW/h

For 30days 61.2kW/h

61.2kW/h * 0.14$ = 8.59$ for a month

for one year:
8.59 * 12 = 104$ per year!!
(but this is 24 hours a day 7 days a week./ 0.14$ per kW/h)

senshi
"I ditched my TV" "an idiot box called TV"
It is interesting to ask why? What is the problem with the TV and what you find wrong with the TV?

senshi · - Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 385 Location: UK

The short answer is simply that it offered no entertainment value, I got fed up of all those infomercials? about products that I dont even want yet take up 30-60 mins of my time that I pay for as a Cable subscriber and TV licence payer, thats my money and time thats being wasted by a company I dont even want in my face, let alone rammed down my tube.

The choice on TV at the time was appaling and we sat down and did the maths, tried an experiement and found the TV all in with the electric was consuming a hideous amount of juice & money, we got shot of the TV and stuck our heads into another tube, the PC tube and we spend our time constructively, I script, design web pages, maintain webspace, Ahem Cough, Download my TV! make music like my girlfriend does also. We also have a PS2 which we play and we spend time together instead of rotting infront of an idiot box.

I visited my sister and they have TV on for the kids, well a program was on and I took a picture of my sister, long since deleted, in it was my sister & her husband and the kids, their friends that were visiting. Whilst they were watching TV they were all in a sort of trance as if hypnotised, was freaky. I commented 'Ahhh... The Power of TV" which woke my sister up and think she saw what I was on about, she now limits the time the children are infront of the TV and gets them doing creative things, it really is an idiot box and I dont need it in my life, If I want something I will buy the DVD when its in the shops or download it in the meantime.

Its upto you at the end of the day, what you do is your business, if ya wanna rot, then do so, but wake up for a while, try going for 1 month with out TV, go do other things, learn something new and you may just see exactly what IM talking about, sure you spend time infront of the PC I know plenty of people who haver the PC in the same room as the TV so its a distraction, IM talking about put in in its box and stuff it in the attic and under lock n key, see how much it consumes of your life and your electric, you'd be amazed.

I think the most annoying thing of all is the TV licencing is on my balls for not having a licence, this is just taken for granted that you have a TV, they cant seem to wrap around their tiny heads that I dont have TV, speaking on the phone with the TV licencing authority, one cheeky B****d advisor said how do we know it isnt in a cellar or in an attic, to which I replied that I live on the second floor of a small apartment block. Its like theyre telling you that you should have a TV, I know plenty of other people who dont do TV anymore and all have similar problems, like me TV licencing have threatened legal action, once posting a fine through my letter box and I have had several letters telling me I need to have a licence. Bunch of idiots.

I suppose you could say IM pissed of with being fed bullshit. Media is not your friend, they constantly lie to you theough the news, I have never ever seen a news item that directly benefits or is in any way related to my needs, why do I need to know about some forign country that cant look after its own internal politcs, do I care, I dont need a daily dose of humble pie as thats all it really is designed to do, make you feel humbled and tankful that you live within a 'Safe' suposidly 'System' or democracy of some kind, so I opted out and they still keep on harassing me for a F****g licence. IM more intrested in looking after No.1 & No.2 than worry about some other issues that dont effect me.

All around, IM not impressed with the content of TV, I do more constructive things with my time, feel free to ditch TV, believe me you wont look back on it when you become aware again, you need to waken from that sulmber that you have been placed in so that brainwashing is easier.

amonia · - Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 45

TV licencing - what is that. Have no idea really - I just pay for cable TV and nothing more.(or my family). It is cheap thing and I get 40+ chanels like:
scientific channels like Discovery and Animal planet,music chanels,CENSORED and many more interesting.

roganty · - Joined: 08 Jun 2004 Posts: 357 Location: Bristol, UK

amonia · - Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 45

Strange system. With cable TV is simple. You pay 8-10$ per month and you get 40+ channels. It is all if you want to. Nobody here cares about this things.

senshi
Then - the problem in not in the ~ideot~ TV box - the problem is in your country.

roganty · - Joined: 08 Jun 2004 Posts: 357 Location: Bristol, UK

amonia · - Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 45

No - the problem is in your country(UK).Here is not that way. The cable tv provider do that job - directly with the TV cannel/s. They pay the licences for channels - and the price includes that. So it is all legal.

olly86 · - Joined: 25 Apr 2003 Posts: 993 Location: Wiltshire, UK

When you buy a TV you get 5 channels available on terrestrial. Bu you must pay for a TV License even if you never watch these channels.

When you chose to get digital services (cable) you than pay that company to provide you with the channels, and they will provide you about 100 channels, however you must still pay the TV License, because you own TV receiving equipment. This fee is used to pay the staff at the BBC.

The government also use to charge you for the privilege of owning a radio
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Olly

roganty · - Joined: 08 Jun 2004 Posts: 357 Location: Bristol, UK

blackarib · - Joined: 19 Jun 2004 Posts: 48

What good is a TV to a blind person? (that is if they can read that in the first place!!!)

amonia · - Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 45

I have nothing against this UK - TV License system. Becouse this is very unefficient and weak system. And that is good ofcource. :)

But what about another countries - for example in US or Germany? Is it the same way?

Just to add here:
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