PC Power Consumption:

How much power does your PC Consume?

Much discussion has been generated as a result of the August 14^th 2003 power failure, and subsequent requests to conserve power, as to how much power a PC workstation or server consumes. The main question being asked is whether-or-not it is better to power it off at night-time. In response IST has does tests and would like to present the following pros and cons relating to powering off your PC.

According to tests conducted by IST, Hardware Support, tests showed the following. On a Pentium 4, 1.7GH machine:

• during boot power in watts is close to 110w
• during idle, no power management,. close to 60w
• during full power saving, no hard disk spin, machine in sleep mode, 35w

The monitor consumption was not included in these tests. Also, number will vary depending on the processor you have and what other peripherals you may have connected.

This means that each PC consumes roughly the same amount of energy at it's highest usage level as a 100w light bulb.

A Sony 17" monitor, by far our most common, consumed 75w when in use. When power-saver mode kicks in (and the monitor goes black with a yellow indicator light) the power consumption is negligible to the point that our test equipment did not even register any power use.

The total power consumption of a typical PC and monitor does not consume more than 175 Watts of energy at its highest rate. At night time when your PC is "sleeping" it only consumes 35 Watts.