Idle power consumption
I bought a powermeter this afternoon and made some measurements...
I started with 2 PCs:
The first computer (Compaq PII 450MHz, 80 GB HD, 256 MB RAM, Debian Sarge) uses around 20W when idle.
The second one (Dell P4 1.5 GHz, 40 GB + 250 GB, 512 MB RAM, Ubuntu Dapper) uses
around 55W when idle.
So if we take into consideration that a HD takes 10W, the diff in consumption is really only 25W... Still twice! Around 25 NOK (3 Euros) a month (in Norway that is) to have the Dell up and running 24/7...
So imagine how much the latest Pentium 3.6 GHz HT dual core uses!
I also found out that a PC turned off but still plugged in uses 5W of electricity (I guess for the NW card which is blinking + other stuff). Imagine a company with 1000 desktop PCs. Even if the employees are environment friendly (i.e they switch them off after working hours), they draw 5 KW when idle. And if they leave them on, then they draw at least 10 times more doing nothing!! And don't get me started with the screens... :)
I have to play around the house a bit now with this powermeter of mine to see how much the appliances use when in idle mode. Kind of homework from reading an article from The Economist (here) about this :)
"Energy: Billions of devices sitting idle in "standby" mode waste vast amounts of energy. What can be done about it?"
The article is for subscribers only but I can send you a copy if needed :)
As Chevron (an Oil company) now advertises about (here), a 5% reduction in global energy use would be enough to power Australia, Mexico and the entire UK.
With the oil price spiraling out of control, the only thing we can do right now is to save energy.
Posted in: _Fun , _General , _Sciences , _PeakOil
I started with 2 PCs:
The first computer (Compaq PII 450MHz, 80 GB HD, 256 MB RAM, Debian Sarge) uses around 20W when idle.
The second one (Dell P4 1.5 GHz, 40 GB + 250 GB, 512 MB RAM, Ubuntu Dapper) uses
around 55W when idle.
So if we take into consideration that a HD takes 10W, the diff in consumption is really only 25W... Still twice! Around 25 NOK (3 Euros) a month (in Norway that is) to have the Dell up and running 24/7...
So imagine how much the latest Pentium 3.6 GHz HT dual core uses!
I also found out that a PC turned off but still plugged in uses 5W of electricity (I guess for the NW card which is blinking + other stuff). Imagine a company with 1000 desktop PCs. Even if the employees are environment friendly (i.e they switch them off after working hours), they draw 5 KW when idle. And if they leave them on, then they draw at least 10 times more doing nothing!! And don't get me started with the screens... :)
I have to play around the house a bit now with this powermeter of mine to see how much the appliances use when in idle mode. Kind of homework from reading an article from The Economist (here) about this :)
"Energy: Billions of devices sitting idle in "standby" mode waste vast amounts of energy. What can be done about it?"
The article is for subscribers only but I can send you a copy if needed :)
As Chevron (an Oil company) now advertises about (here), a 5% reduction in global energy use would be enough to power Australia, Mexico and the entire UK.
With the oil price spiraling out of control, the only thing we can do right now is to save energy.
Posted in: _Fun , _General , _Sciences , _PeakOil
posted by Bambitroll at
08:51
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home