[ale] OT: Calculating PC power consumption

[Geoffrey]

John Wells wrote:
> Calvin Harrigan said:
>>We would need to know the power consumption of the machines or at least
>>the configuration of the machines.
> 
> Assume an average of 200W power supply per box.  The power consumption per
> machine is the rub...if I understand it correctly they'll only pull what
> they need, which varies over time.  Hence, I'm only looking for a rough
> guess.

A quiescent machine draws very little current.  Advanced hardware will
draw even less (monitor's shut down, hard drives shutdown...)

You won't see a box pulling the full PS wattage except during say bootup
and/or some major stressing (graphics stuff, huge disk searches,
multiple compiles...).

I did the math once for 11 machines and the associated network hardware
and it really didn't come to much in comparison to my existing electric
 bill.

A lot depends on what the boxes are doing.  My 'motion' boxes obviously
suck up more juice as they are constantly monitoring the cameras.  My
firewall is busy with ids stuff and such all the time.  My development
box is real busy for 8-10 hours a day, but quiet most of the rest of the
time.

If you want a max, simply do the math for the PS ratings and add them
up.  I'd say you'd be safe in assuming you're using less then 50% of
that value, unless your boxes are really busy.


-- 
Until later, Geoffrey