Solved Determining the PC wattage consumption

HWiNFO gives you far too much information.
Very little of that is related to power consumption.
In fact only the CPU TDP of 54w.

There are many other components that take power.
I used nothing that HWiNFO provided, looked up that CPU with Intel.

Maximum estimates for RAM, Drives, Fans, PSU inefficiencies. Those are variables in reality.

At max power (using 3dMark and such) that PC should max at 150W in the very worst case. I had a 65W proccessor and 70W gfx consuming 190W at most from the wall (what includes PSU losses, I didn't do "irrational" proofs trying to squeeze every watt or attempting a world record...). 24/7: 150W is 3600 Wh per day and 108000 Wh = 108 kWh per month. Idk the electricity prices there, my last bill was at about 0.12 €/kWh, so 12.96 €. 24/7 but power saving most of the time (and the gfx idle lol) should be like 6-7 € at most. A monitor of 70W goes for about 6 € too (at the prices I know) except if it's off, then it's negligible.

I don't have heating here except a portable electic heater, that I can use at 400, 800 or 1200 W. My air conditioner is rated at 1000W, but it uses to consume less than the heater (if I close the room doors) b/c air conditioners auto-regulate the consumption, heaters like mine don't (I do it myself manually). It came a hard heat wave in June but since then the weather hasn't been very hot here and I haven't needed the A/C.

In summer the fridge engine is 16/20 hours on per day (it's a traditional one that I believe consumes about 200W when on). In winter it's off most of the time and the freezer freezes little, although I nearly don't use it (I mean the upper small cabinet of the fridge, not an independent appliance, both freezer and fridge share the same engine and circuits but the thermostat is in the fridge; in the kitchen I never use the heater, I use warm clothes instead).

Dish washers consume a lot, like 2000W. Washing machines it depends on the washing temperature. These are never 24/7 and it depends a lot on how much are they used.

Hot water is electric here. I liked more the "algorithm" of my previous water heater, that did not guarantee "very" hot water (like 55ºC, most times you mix this but some few short uses are better "pure") always, instead of my current one that acts as an iron (keeping the water always hot, my previous unit did frequently "activate" with the use and the water was frequently only warm, but enough). It's modern and efficient though within its "algorithm".

I hope you can find the "leak".

Thanks for the info. Most likely some other device left on and consuming power. Not the computer. I will visit and check probably Sunday.

spapakons said:

Thanks for the info. Most likely some other device left on and consuming power. Not the computer. I will visit and check probably Sunday.

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Do they manually read the meter? A little over a year before my electric company updated my meter to the new smart meter I got a bill that was over $800 US dollars. I called them and said that there was no way I used that much electric and told them I wasn't paying it until they sent someone to reread the meter. My bill was reduced to just a little over $200.00.

Well I visited today and it turns out I hadn't forgotten the boiler or any air condition or other power hungry device on. I don't believe the computer can consume too much energy. I also cut off the power to check the power meter if something still draws power. Nothing, so the neighbor is not stealing our power. It is a little weird why the electricity bill was that high. Maybe we have to call the electricity company to check the meter and tell us if we used that power or not. I think I'm going to mark this thread solved.

PS: The fridge is on, but since we hardly open the door the temperature should be maintained so it should work less and consume little power, but you never know for sure.

spapakons said:

I don't think it supports wake on LAN and even if it were, I wouldn't risk losing access.

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A little searching reveals that the motherboard, ASUS Z-170-K (manual here) has a RTL8111H ethernet controller, and this site tells us that "The RTL8111H/RTL8111HS supports ‘RealWoW!’ technology that enables remote wake-up of a sleeping PC through the Internet".

So I suggest you try leaving it in sleep mode, and (when next to it) confirm that it can be woken by the remote access connection.

That aside, there is no way that it could add significantly to the electricity bill, unless it was running an intensive game at full power. As others have said, a watt-meter is the way to answer the question.

mngerhold said:

A little searching reveals that the motherboard, ASUS Z-170-K (manual here) has a RTL8111H ethernet controller, and this site tells us that "The RTL8111H/RTL8111HS supports ‘RealWoW!’ technology that enables remote wake-up of a sleeping PC through the Internet".

So I suggest you try leaving it in sleep mode, and (when next to it) confirm that it can be woken by the remote access connection.

That aside, there is no way that it could add significantly to the electricity bill, unless it was running an intensive game at full power. As others have said, a watt-meter is the way to answer the question.

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How about the SIMPLE way :
Turn the computer on and then just look at your electricity meter !!!!!!!!

I believe most jurisdictions have "Smart meters" - or presumably if not you've got "OLD SKULE" types = just read the numbers !!!


@Winuser

Surely these utility companies send bills out monthly / quarterly either electronically or the old fashioned paper way whether you have a smart meter or not so it shouldn't be that hard to get a running total of your energy consumption -- errors can happen - but unlikely if you kept a running total -- just sling the bill on to a spreadsheet when it arrives !!!! - not that hard to do.

That said I'm glad you got your money back -- I hope you charged them interest while they had YOUR money in THEIR bank !!!

Cheers
jimbo

I have only entered BIOS rarely, so I don't remember a Wake on LAN setting. Besides, if the computer is idle most of the time (nothing runs in the background), how much power would it use? Almost nothing. I have mine (2nd system specs) on 24/7 and rendering several videos during the day, never has a higher election bill (only during the hot days of Summer due to the air conditions working all the time). So if mine doesn't consume much power, my father's also doesn't.

Electricity is complicated if you don't know it, but it isn't mysterious.

150W 24/7 are 13€/month at 0.12€/kWh (see my post above). If any factor is different, proportion, for instance during the international "energy crysis" in 2022 the price could easily go to 0.24 €/kWh or higher, in such case 26€/month instead of 13; if it's only 75W instead of 150, half the cost (6.50€/month); and if it isn't 24/7 but say 8/7, one third (4.33€/month). All at the same time, 13 · 2 (double price) · 1/2 (half power)· 1/3 (1/3rd of the day) = 4.33 €/month. Random numbers 500W, 10 hours/day, 0.17€/kWh : 13 · 500/150 · 10/24 · 0.17/0.12 = 43.92 €/month. A computer I had with 125W processor and 140W gfx (estimated, spec was 190W) consumed 330W from the wall and 3dMark06 top settings (I'm not saying I couldn't use some other sw to make it consume 360W or so).

(the cents/kWh are 1/10th of the news-followed "€/MWh" back when the said crysis, so 0.24 €/kWh would correspond to 240 €/MWh; this "news price" is only indicative for many reasons, but I took the habit to calculate the €/kWh of my bill -it may come directly or you'd have to divide the "energy cost" by the total kWh; the energy cost might include the VAT and other taxes but you don't seem to be after a say 20% discrepancy- and there was quite concordance with the news).

My fridge engine is nearly always on in summer, it gets to rest some hours in the night or early morning, and I don't open the door a lot, although my kitchen is more exposed to the outer weather than average. The math proposed above with my fridge (185W 18 hours/day) gives 3.33 kWh/day 99.9 kWh/month and 12.03 €/month (at 0.12 €/kWh), in summer of course. Specs say 1.24 kWh/day, but I suppose this is at 15-20ºC, not 30-35ºC.

Computers are one of the appliances least prone to overconsume by big factors, say double or triple. Following my example above: Phenom II x4 955 + ATi HD4890 = 330W forcing. How could one extract 1 KW from here (supposing the PSU could do it)? How would you avoid terminal overheating with the "good quality but normal" case fans and heatsinks it had?

jimbo45 said:

How about the SIMPLE way : Turn the computer on and then just look at your electricity meter !!!!!!!!

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That's fine if you have nothing (or almost nothing) else drawing current. Unlikely in our house. And to spot the likely 0.5 - 5 watts (if sleeping) would be tricky.

Not worth the effort. Likely I will visit again next month. In the time being only the fridge and the computer are working with the TV set in standby. Probably the Electricity company has to check the meter.

gunrunnerjohn said:

Well, that really isn't the real picture. The 500W rating is the absolute max rating. My power supply on this machine is an 850W power supply, but the actual power consumed by the machine, the two monitors, my switch, and a separate video picture frame totals 154 watts right now. The max rating means nothing as far as the actual power consumption is concerned.

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I agree with you. I was just quoting the maximum draw on the power grid at full burn. In reality, the system will draw much less power.