Electric Bill

[tgxiii]

I was browsing through the System Specs forum and I was wondering, with all your computers crunching away 24/7, how much do you pay extra for electricity? I'm wondering how much more are you paying because you're running your farms.

Also, am I right in assuming that older computers will eat up more electricity than new ones? Are they significantly more costly to run, or is the difference hardly noticeable?

[dannychuckle]

New PCs will use more electricity - but the increase in processing power has increased loads faster than the rate of electricity consumption, so running a few new PCs will be more efficient than lots of older ones for the same output. An old P2 uses somewhere around 25W I think, while some of the new Athlons & P4s use nearly 100W.

I think laptop technology has helped a bit, and LCD displays use much less than CRT monitors, but new CPUs and graphics cards use more...

if we're gonna pay for heating anyway, it might as well be from the PC rather than the heater :D

[serlv ( Zippy )]

Originally posted by tgxiii
I was browsing through the System Specs forum and I was wondering, with all your computers crunching away 24/7, how much do you pay extra for electricity? I'm wondering how much more are you paying because you're running your farms.

Also, am I right in assuming that older computers will eat up more electricity than new ones? Are they significantly more costly to run, or is the difference hardly noticeable?

I run a heavy guage extension cord to my next door neighbor's porch. He is in a wheel chair and never goes out there!






























j/k

I pay a heavy power bill with 15-16 PC's on 24x7, and A/C.

[Plum Ugly]

I pay about $60 extra a month

[tgxiii]

Originally posted by Plum Ugly
I pay about $60 extra a month

:whoa: I hope my bill never goes that high, but I assume you have more than just 8 computers running since you're currently #1 in the team.

Anyone else care to share how much more they're paying per month? I'd like to get a basic idea so I can adjust my crunching accordingly.

[PresterJohn]

Originally posted by tgxiii
I'd like to get a basic idea so I can adjust my crunching accordingly.

what's to adjust?! :)

contribute what you can afford or what you feel comfortable doing. there's no such thing as too much or too little. :)

[tgxiii]

Just planning for the future. I wanted to get a basic idea of how much it costs to run an extra computer. I'd like to run as many cows as I can, but not be surprised when the bill comes.

Maybe I'll just move back into my old apartment where utilities are included in the flat rate rental cost....

[PresterJohn]

Originally posted by tgxiii
Maybe I'll just move back into my old apartment where utilities are included in the flat rate rental cost....

that sounds like a cruncher's paradise. :bunny:

as for the cost...it will depend also on what your local KW rates are. figure if you run your machines headless (w/o a monitor), it'll be between $2-4+ dollars a month.

[PresterJohn]

also, what many members do is run remotes or recruit from family/friends. it's probably the most effective way to increase your output w/a minimal impact to the pcoketbook.

if you have machines to spare, i'd pick the three fastest cpus (AMD's do much better than intel for crunching FAD) and run those 24/7 and see how your electric bill looks for the next 2 months. and take it from there. :)

[tgxiii]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm trying to get relatives and friends to run FaD on their computers, but I'm not having much luck. I'll keep trying, though.

Sorry if I'm asking too many questions, but why are AMDs better than Intel?

[PresterJohn]

gimme 5-6 minutes...snackin on some chips at the moment. one hand holding the bag & the other is holding the chips. :D

[tgxiii]

Haha, okay. You deserve a break. You've been answering all my questions here and the other thread I have.

[PresterJohn]

AMDs crunch much better than Intels overall because when intel designed the p4...they made a decision to weaken the raw FPU (floating point unit) on the chip. as a result, the pentium 4's (and xeons) do a less effective job crunching FAD because the type of instruction set that the client runs makes heavy use of the fpu and less on SSE exntensions (which is what intel in their monopolized way of thinking would have the world use). :)

the pentium 3's sport a very good FPU and make good FAD crunchers...the problem is that they top out at ~1.4ghz which is is pretty 'back-seat' these days compared to what a cheap athlon xp can do.

[tgxiii]

Thanks again, JP. Now go on and finish your chips!

[sharder8]

In my case, I'm not sure which is costing me more, in the way of electricity . . . . . :rolleyes:

23 computers running 24x7

or

One 15y.o. daughter, One 13y.o. daughter, One 11y.o. son, and One wife????? :rolleyes:

Harder

Okay, I know . . . . . . . .

The 23 computers running 24x7 are a bargain! :p :bunny:

[sharder8]

Honestly . . . .

I live in OR, just south (13mi) of MT Bachelor. My house that I'm renting is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, and is 100% electric. My large, insulated garage is heated by 14 computers and a 1,500w electric heater.

My electric bill for last month was $210 :eek: :eek: :eek:

My brother, who lives 4 blocks from me and has 3 computers that are rarely on, 2 adult kids and 1 grand-daughter living with him, had a bill of $180. :p (His house is a slight bit larger than mine, and he doesn't have a garage.)

Harder

[PresterJohn]

Originally posted by sharder8
Honestly . . . .

I live in OR, just south (13mi) of MT Bachelor. My house that I'm renting is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, and is 100% electric. My large, insulated garage is heated by 14 computers and a 1,500w electric heater.

My electric bill for last month was $210 :eek: :eek: :eek:

My brother, who lives 4 blocks from me and has 3 computers that are rarely on, 2 adult kids and 1 grand-daughter living with him, had a bill of $180. :p (His house is a slight bit larger than mine, and he doesn't have a garage.)

Harder

electric heat will kill you every time.

i was commuting to work in dec and overheard two gentlement chatting on the train. heck they were talkin' so loud it wasn't even eaves-dropping. :p

anyways one of them was talking about how a couple of years ago, he had rented a house at an incredibly cheap monthly rate. the kicker was the house ran on electric heat. he wound up paying like $600 a month to heat the house. LOL

[sharder8]

Originally posted by PresterJohn
electric heat will kill you every time.

i was commuting to work in dec and overheard two gentlement chatting on the train. heck they were talkin' so loud it wasn't even eaves-dropping. :p

anyways one of them was talking about how a couple of years ago, he had rented a house at an incredibly cheap monthly rate. the kicker was the house ran on electric heat. he wound up paying like $600 a month to heat the house. LOL Well, let's see . . . . .

Around here there isn't any natural gas lines, Fuel Oil and Propane are more expensive to heat with than electric, geothermal, and wood. Geothermal isn't typically found in rental units, and wood is costly and too much work. :rolleyes: (Heated my garage in MN with wood and it's cheaper there . . . . learned the hard way! ) :bunny:

So, that leaves electric for everything! :(

BTW, one of my neighbors thought it would be cheaper to heat with Propane . . . . . . Smaller house, no kids, 2 computers, garage not heated . . . . . gas and electric combined was higher than mine. :p

Harder

[PresterJohn]

sounds like in your neck of the words, electricity is cheaper. this might be because of local power production, esp if hydro, wind, or geothermic methods are being used.

wish i had that...Con Edision rates are one of the highest in the country, i think.

[serlv ( Zippy )]

heh, you should see las vegas's, or at least mine. I'd venture to say that my PCs and the additional A/C ( or more specifically, more often run A/C ) adds a minimum of 100-120 to my bill, maybe more in the summer )

[Twinkletoes]

One has to think in a broader perspective here, and try to fool, if not oneself, at least one's wife.

I live in a fairly cold climate, and have an old house which is poorly insulated by modern standards. The house is heated by "water-borne elecricity", i.e. I have a central boiler running on electricity to heat water which runs through normal radiators.

Last year (2003) my total consumption of electricity was 32 200 kW-hours. The year before (2002 - no computers running 24/7) it was 28 900. Does that mean that the computers account for the difference ? No way !!! Because the year before that (2001) it was 31 500 kW-hours !!!

So my dear wife, the "additional" power we used in 2003 had nothing at all to do with the computers. It was just that 2003 - like 2001 - was a colder year than 2002...

In other words, for me, I can justify things by saying that running one or two computers can not be seen in the overall plan !!!

(But having said that, I've invested a fortune in energy-saving lamps throughout the house, and I always switch the monitors (70 W) off whenever I leave the room for a while !!!)



Here is a link which calculates your computer's power consumption for you !!! (http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/) Very interesting indeed.

[gino x]

Interesting links btw :)

My power usage is quite high (or so my parents think) the bill is usually $60-100 a month, no comps run 24/7 cause they happen to not know what FaD is, I've tried explaining to them what it is at least 6 times :eek:

I have natural gas heating here in SJ but I still think that PG&E charges way too much :(

[sharder8]

Originally posted by Twinkletoes

(But having said that, I've invested a fortune in energy-saving lamps throughout the house, and I always switch the monitors (70 W) off whenever I leave the room for a while !!!)
TT does bring up a good point! :rolleyes:

I also have installed florecent light bulbs in most of the light fixtures. Especially in the dining room, kids rooms, garage, and the vanity lights over the mirrors in the bathrooms. These are the lights that tend to be on most of the time. Most of my herd runs headless, and the rule in this house is that you turn off the monitor if you're not on the computer.

These two items probably do the most for the reduction of power usage in this house, even with 23 computers running.

Harder

[PresterJohn]

besides all the forementioned ideas, if & when you need to replace those CRT monitors...look to getting a LCD instead. they typically use about 35-40% of the power that conventional crt display uses.

if you use your computer for heavy gaming or fast video playback, you may be better off w/the crt, but for text stuff, the LCD is unbeatable.

[davidw]

I pay $20/per computer/per month.

[sharder8]

LCD's also s**k when using engineering programs like AutoCADD!!!! Unless you want to pay the high prices of one equal to the .21mm CRT's! :(

Harder

[SoopaStar]

my electric and gas bill from Cinergy can range form $150 to $200+ during the winter. I have4 computers running and keep the thermostat at 65-67 (in a 70 year old house)

[Plum Ugly]

everything here is electric an I pay about $250 total a month.I'm runnin from 27 to 32 computers here at home. 6 moniters,2-4port kvm switches,and the rest are headless.The moniters I turn off when not in use.

[Cowboybooter]

Total electric bill here is about £28 per month! One of the few good things about a small house!

:)

Bob

[Twinkletoes]

Hey guys. This is rapidly developing into a currency conversion exercise, at best. We're just trying to compare apples and pears and I'm going bananas doing it. Grrrrrr.

Some bright spark (sic) above cunningly started using the only meaningful unit of measurement when it comes to comparing electricity consumption, namely Watts (W) - or if you want to talk over time, kW-hours.

Since I don't know the rates of exchange, nor the cost of electricty in various states/countries, throwing out Dollars and Pounds is a little meaningless, don't you think ?

[Siliconjunkie]

Originally posted by PresterJohn
besides all the forementioned ideas, if & when you need to replace those CRT monitors...look to getting a LCD instead. they typically use about 35-40% of the power that conventional crt display uses. Not to mention the reduced heat. I have no idea what my 4 PCs cost me, but in the summer I will get close to $500.

[mondobyte]

Originally posted by dannychuckle
New PCs will use more electricity - but the increase in processing power has increased loads faster than the rate of electricity consumption, so running a few new PCs will be more efficient than lots of older ones for the same output. An old P2 uses somewhere around 25W I think, while some of the new Athlons & P4s use nearly 100W.

I think laptop technology has helped a bit, and LCD displays use much less than CRT monitors, but new CPUs and graphics cards use more...

if we're gonna pay for heating anyway, it might as well be from the PC rather than the heater :D

I beg to differ. Actual measurements don't lie! (No monitor on any of these measurements)

My dual pentium 200, 256mb RAM, 2 SCSI 9gb LVD HD, SCSI CD, Floppy, Dual NIC, PCI Video, 250W PSU with dual fans runs right at 2.11 Amps out of the wall - real pig for a FaD rating of 14

My dual Athlon MP 1.2, 512mb RAM, 2 SCSI 18gb LVD HD, SCSI CD, Floppy, SCSI Host, Dual NIC, AGP Video, Sound Card, 500W PSU, and 4 case fans runs right at 1.76 Amps out of the wall.

My new Shuttle XPC (SN41G2) with 512mb RAM, 40gb ATA-100 IDE Drive, IDE DVD ROM, XP2400+ runs right at .67 Amps out of the wall ...

My dual Athlon MP2000+, 512mb ECC RAM, 8 SCSI 9gb LVD HD, SCSI CD-RW, SCSI DVD-ROM, Floppy, Dual NIC, SCSI RAID HOst, SCSI Host, AGP Video, Sound Card, 550W PSU, and 6 case fans runs right at 2.54 Amps out of the wall. (FaD rating 336) I am sure the higher amperage is due in large part to the 8 LVD drives!!!

My dual Pentium III XEON 850, 125gb PC133, 9 SCSI LVD HD, SCSI CD-RW, SCSI DVD-ROM, Floppy, Dual NIC, SCSI RAID Host, SCSI HOst, AGP Video, Sound Card, dual 400W Redundant PSU and 10 case fans runs at about 3.14 Amps out of the wall. Again ... I strongly suspect the number of LVD drives and running redundant PSU's adds to the consumption significantly

The most modern processors may take more power (a PII-300 sucks 43 watts, a Pentium 200 sucks 7W, and an XP2200+ sucks 50.7) but the numbers say that newer computers are more efficient by a wide margin.

Electricity consumption is one of the reasons why I am retiring my dual pentium 200 herd (4) with XP2200+ or XP2400+ computers although I don't expect consumption to go down all that much however, efficiency will show a dramatic increase.

The new machines will have the same SCSI Host, SCSI LVD Drives, CD-ROM drive, and Dual NIC. When I get them built, I will measure the actual AMPS out of the wall on the new boxes and let you know the verdict.

Sometime in the next 2-3 weeks, my herd will have changed significantly ...

dual p54c-200/256mb -> XP2200+/512mb (FaD 14 -> 180)
dual p54c-200/256mb -> XP2200+/512mb (FaD 14 -> 180)
dual p54c-200/256mb -> XP2400+/512/mb (FaD 14 -> 210)
dual p54c-200/256mb -> Retired from FaD (FaD 15 -> 0)

For conversion to Watts ... W = Amps * Volts ... my voltage here was about 116 at the time of the measurements.

[gino x]

Newer comps have have CPUs that use more power, but there are other parts of a computer that can be helpful in saving (or using more - take the large amount of LVD drives to be a good example) energy.

I'm planning on retiring my 667Mhz and dual 733 when I upgrade to an AMD Athlon XP 2800 :)

[mickwish]

TT, your link to wattage usage isn't really useful for this discussion, I'm afraid. The Wattages listed below are maximum potential wattages for each item. The total amount this calculator figures is for all devices running at peak utilization. It is important to bear in mind that this amount will never be reached under typical operation. It's designed to select the optimum PSU wattage. Not real useful in calculating actual watts used in a system on a regular basis. :)

Cheers
Mick

[mondobyte]

Based on actual measurements of my mob running full tilt on FaD ...

1067.8133 KWH/Month
$36.8396/Month

This includes all devices in basement (routers, UPS, switches, dsl modems, computers, monitors, kvm's etc.) (No Lighting)

This also includes Computer/Monitor/Peripherals/UPS/etc for the 2 computers not in the basement.

Buying Switches with internal Power Supplies is quite a savings as they are usually switching power supplies as opposed to the transformer/diode/capacitor power supplies in those little plastic cases that plug into the wall. Those little black case gizmos are parasitic leeches when it comes to your electric bill. The transformer base power supplies usually use the same wattage irrespective of the load while the switching power supplies generally utilize power based on the demand of the load.

[Twinkletoes]

Originally posted by mondobyte
Based on actual measurements of my mob running full tilt on FaD ...
1067.8133 KWH/Month
$36.8396/Month
How many GHz does that represent at the moment, Mondo ? If you have nothing better to do, an approximate figure in GHz-hours would be an even more interesting figure...:D:

And are all you guys and gals "over there" on a nominal 110 Volts ???


Mick - fair comment. But something is better than nothing (the Bishop said -j/k).

[Cowboybooter]

As far as I know, 110 volts is the standard US power supply, this can be taken up to 220v lines for heavy appliances such as washing machines and cookers!

Correct me if I'm wrong, someone!

:)

Bob

[Edsel]

it is actually a common misconception that because u got ur pc on a lot that it will consume huge amounts of electricity. Letting it run silently 24/7 actually uses less energy than u using it for a while and turning it on and off all the time. The energy surge needed for startup and shutdown is far greater than the one used to use FaD.

[PresterJohn]

Originally posted by Edsel
The energy surge needed for startup and shutdown is far greater than the one used to use FaD.

i am not an electrician or anything but i would highly doubt that leaving a pc on for a sustained period (say more than 1 hr) will use less energy than starting it up and off.

[edit] note, i am strictly talking about power comsumption...not stress. (obviously turning on/off something repeatedly will stress the components more)

[Edsel]

well in an overall if u use the computer a lot but u keep turning it on and off..it consumes quite a bit of energy...the energy difference does not make that huge of a difference on the bill...

I say instead just remember to shut off the lights in your house instead of leaving them on unecessarily..or shut off the tv if ur not watching it...etc...stuff like that if u wanna save up .

[Twinkletoes]

Originally posted by Edsel
Letting it run silently 24/7 actually uses less energy than u using it for a while and turning it on and off all the time. I hate to say it, because I'm sure it will go to his head, but I agree with PJ on this one. You're not mixing computers up with 747's are you ? Have you any figures to support that, or is this just a gut feeling you have at the back of your brain ?

[Edsel]

it was posted at a geek site i went to. They had some figures. I guess it really depends how u run ur computer.Running a little bitmore aint going to kill ur bill...espeically if its on sleep mode.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

Back now, daughter should be released 2morrow, :D:):D:)

I would like to add a bit here.....

Motors (fans, HD's CDroms etc.) all take a lot more power to start up, this surge can often exceed 400% of what running current is, so this would only last for approx 1 second with a deminishing curve..

The advantage to cost, leaving it running, is replacing parts, since spinning up requires 4x more current, if there is a weakness that has devloped or is exsisting over time it is more likely to blow during this "spin up" time, this can affect things outside of the motors aswell since the surge of power required can cause surges elsewhere...

Also if you don't leave them on you are wasting approx 1 min. of time waiting for it to boot up. Power saving on HD's can be devastating to a PC and can cause lockups from power surges (only really true of HD power saving) and should be set to 4 hour time out to power down to prevent continuous cycling of power.

I run all of my PC's all the time, even when away for multiple days, but I have vested interests in this project, and also can't be bothered turning them off, I have electric heat so one way or another the hydro is being used.