Increased ESB bill & Quad Core Computer

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sluice44

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I wasn't sure whether to post here or in the computer forum but these two links about increased ESB bills were posted in the homes and gardens forum....

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=68479
http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=66485

Our ESB bill has increased by maybe 50% over the last one and everyone's pointing the finger at each other! I know it's now winter but one person blames the daily use of the washing machine, another blames the (almost) constant use of TV, another blames the 3hr roast on a Sunday...

The unknown is the computer. It's an Intel Core 2 Quad @ 2.40Ghz (???) desktop computer and it's used for maybe 3 hours a day.

How bad are computers at using electricity?

TIA.
 
My parents had been commenting that since Jan. the ESB bills had gone up considerably. My brother had bought one of the DELL XPS gaming rigs about that time and its very sizeable. You should hear the noise from the fans as it boots. I decided to see if I could eliminate it.

Anyway, as a very rough experiment I opened the ESB meter box and and timed a single revolution of the meter. I then booted the PC and again timed it and it had doubled the usage for the house. To put in a little more context, during my little test it was coming up to lunch time on sunday, the oven was on, the hob had 3 rings minimum on, the extractor was on, the LCD in the sitting room was on along with the fridge freezer.

So although it can greatly depend on the cooling mechanism within the system, the next gen. pcs do appear to be power hungry.
 
I have heard that oil fired heating is quite heavy on electricity, but I don't have it so I can't confirm. It would switch in and out, so that maybe affecting your reading?
 
this is a very interetsing thread - grabbing my spot early. I will pass this on to a group of gamers to see what they have found. Personally I leave my PC running nearly 24-7 as I find that PCs will go into sleep mode when not in use.

Getting back to your testing. Were you running anything on the PC at the time or was it on idle? Are you a gamer? Is your rig being pushed at all when you have it powered on? Running a game like Crysis might effect the amount of power being used versus if its just used to browse the web.

The trend in server design is for less power less cooling faster speed and for the most part when an old server is removed from a DC there is a power and cooling gain (ie you can take out 10 old generation servers and replace with 12~ and see same power usage) This may NOT be the case for a gaming rig though - more power and more cooling needed.
 
Thanks for the replies.

The computer is not a 'gaming rig', it's just used for things like lots of photoshop & itunes (2 external HDs) and general internet use. It is noisy though.

I might try the experiment of looking at the meter - 3 hrs with no computer and 3 hours with the computer on.

We have oil fired central heating so maybe that's a factor.
 
As far as I'm aware your average computer including monitor should consume less than 200Watts (and probably nearer the 100W mark).
And to put that in context is only equivalent to say two or so of your average bulbs in your house. i.e. the soon to be banned bulbs.
Regards
Fran
 

Noise does not mean its heavy on power.
 

Most modern PCs have PSUs that consume 300W or more. Add the monitor in (my flat panel is 40W) then you're looking at 3 1/2 lightbulbs.
 
plant43 said:
Most modern PCs have PSUs that consume 300W or more. Add the monitor in (my flat panel is 40W) then you're looking at 3 1/2 lightbulbs.
Click to expand...

The PSU may be rated at between 300W and 1KW in some cased but in idle usage the computer would not require that amount of power (except maybe during gaming/bootup/video encoding).

A low powered desktop with 15" lcd screen (maybe like a laptop), running for 3 hours a day will cost ~€6 euro over two months in electricity see here [broken link removed]

Ramp the wattage up to a gaming/intensive usage machine (say 600W) with 5 hours usage a day and the cost goes up to ~€32 over 2 months.

Still not enough to increase your ESB bill by 50% unless you live very frugally
 

Of all of that I'd suspect the Washing machine, especially if its got a dryer. Does it really need to be used daily?
 
As mentioned in another post, the ESB website has some good info on this including an appliance calculator which can help you work out how much the various appliances are costing you.
 
Out of curiosity I just measured my PC's power using a plug in energy monitor ( eBay as recommended by Clubman).

It's a Dell XPS dual core this year's model.
On startup it runs up to a max of about 100 watts, settles down to about 65watts, goes up to 75watts starting Excel and settles down again.

I use two monitors, 19inch widescreen Benq takes 42watts, Dell 20inch takes 44watts.
 
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Interesting Hoagy, just for our interest's sake, when playing a DVD full screen what does the power for the screen/computer go up to ?
 
Playing a DVD full screen, the PC steadies at 75/76 watts, the monitor stayed the same.
 
If you want to test the power it uses. Rip a Video and encode it to DivX. Or play a heavy duty game for a few hours.
 
LOL, I think I've gotten in a bit over my head. I don't understand all the tech stuff above but I do appreciate the esb calculator link and the 3 1/2 lightbulb analogy.

I did my little experiment. I left the TV on for 3 hrs and then the TV+Computer(with iTunes) for another 3 hours. Very, very, roughly, the TV alone used approx 1unit of electricity per hour while the TV+Computer used 1/3unit. So much for that scientific experiment!!!!

For me, the washing machine/the dishwasher/the central heating seem to be the main culprit(s) and not the computer. Thanks.
 
sluice44 said:
Very, very, roughly, the TV alone used approx 1unit of electricity per hour while the TV+Computer used 1/3unit. So much for that scientific experiment!!!!
Click to expand...
There must have been other loads skewing the results if you were getting 1 unit for the TV alone but one third of that for both TV and PC.
 
Yeah, it's weird and I only posted the info because I didn't want to be accussed of ignoring a thread I started.

The TV alone portion was approx 9am-noon. Maybe the dishwasher is the culprit but it would have been turned on at, say, 7.30am and been finished at, I dunno, 9.30am. I didn't hear it. The only other possibility was the dishwater.

The washing machine is new-ish and energy-rated A or B (can't remember). The dishwater is +5 years old and the central heating is +10 years old. Is it possible to figure out an energy rating for them?
 
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