Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
cost of running a pc (in the UK)?
f0dder:
An ATX-based (and probably BTX based as well) PC is never really off - and yeah, I guess that's to support the wake-on-* events.
I have a feeling that some USB devices might make the situation worse, since I've experienced things like optical USB mice that don't turn off when you power down, etc.
As for monitors, that's silly as well - there's no reason I can think of for being on standby rather than "hard off" - except perhaps that they have these "soft" power buttons nowadays, rather than the clicking "hard" buttons of old (that actually did turn them off).
I have one of those power rails with an USB connection that's supposed to turn off when the computer goes off, unfortunately it doesn't work... but at least I can still pull out the USB connector to power off my monitors and external usb drive.
Darn, now I really want one of those meters, to see how much my computer consumes on "poweroff".
nudone:
yep, i've got one of those mice that stays 'on' when the power is 'off'. in other words the pc isn't really 'off'. but it's a ps2 connection not a usb.
it really is a bizarre trend that 'hard off' buttons are nolonger being manufactured - are 'traditional' on/off buttons that likely to fail that they we can't have them anymore.
this new LCD monitor i use doesn't even have any buttons you can see - it's a touch sensitive panel. all very flash and i thought nothing of it. then one night i noticed a slight buzzing sound in the room - surprise, surprise - it was the monitor. it looked like it was off but (no LED lit) the humming sound coming from it means this is yet another device that never turns off unless you yank it from the wall. complety and utterly pointless.
i've suspected this 'never off' syndrome for a while so i have several multi socket thingies that have their own on/off switches for each socket. it makes it a lot easier to control what's on/off then as you don't have to physically pull the plug - just flick the switch.
Ruffnekk:
i've suspected this 'never off' syndrome for a while so i have several multi socket thingies that have their own on/off switches for each socket. it makes it a lot easier to control what's on/off then as you don't have to physically pull the plug - just flick the switch.
-nudone (February 22, 2007, 02:16 PM)
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Well I was just wondering about that. I also use socket extensions with a switch and if you still have the meter, I wonder if you could measure between the wall socket and the multi-socket extension to see if power is still being drained or not (with the switch 'off' of course).
nudone:
right. i plugged the meter directly into the electrical wall socket.
i then plugged the extension sockets into the meter.
the wattage reading on the meter is zero when the extension socket on/off switches are set to 'off'.
i soon as i turn something on on the extension then the wattage reading goes up. when i flick the switch off on the extension the reading goes back to zero.
having said this, there must be a miniscule amount of current being used even when the extension switches are 'off' as there are two LEDs that are lit up on the extension socket casing. These obviously go off when you flick the wall socket to off.
Carol Haynes:
I use a UPS with my system - I can switch everything off from my desktop (couple of clicks) including the UPS which means all power is cut to the system.
The only power usage therefore when I switch off is the trickle charge on the UPS when the battery is not 100%.
Actually the UPS has sufficient power capacity (in the event of a blackout) that I also run my HiFi and DVD through it so they are all protected from power outages and dirty power signals plus I can ensure none of the devices are left on 'standby' or 'soft-off'.
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