Power use at idle?

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 10:23 pm

My new build is using 65 & 69 watts doing nothing but sitting there!

I dug out my Watt A Meter and checked power use as I am building the system tonight.

Antec Earthsaver P/S is 65Watts Idle
Enermax P/S is 69watts Idle

Right now all I have installed is basics, M/B, on board Video, 4 gigs DDR2 (2 sticks), Cpu is AMD 5050E 2X and rated 45watts. Cpu fan (running really slow on a cold CPU)

Although the Antec is using 4 watts less power at idle to be fair I should say it has only 1 fan! The Enermax has 3 fans and are temp controlled and also has manual speed control on back.

With the system turned off both P/S's showed 1 watt power being used.

I won't be swapping P/S's much after I get it together so I'll only be able to look at the one I decide to use I guess, I think that will be the Enermax.

Anyway I was a bit surprised to see 65 and 69watts being used Idle with just the bare board running like that.

I'll check it again after I get drives installed and such. This was just sitting on the bench, not even in a case yet. Oh YA, no case so no system fans yet either!
And monitor was seperate not included.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 10:39 pm

Video card can get you pretty good. The mobo draws a fair bit of power too.

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 1:29 am

I'm using the onboard video for now, 512MB shared. I get it put together and I'll see what power use is. I hadn't thought about it but the LCD monitor always showed locked at the insert boot disk screen, so ya the Video was eating too much power and didn't go into sleep or such mode then.

Well started putting stuff in case. I need 2 stand offs and I can't find my odd screws and standoffs bottle. I want this running tonight, maybe at other house, maybe I'll wedge in a chunk of wood to support the board edge LOL

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 1:38 am

Onboard still uses power too. Especially some of the newer ones.

Worst case, just leave the edge ones off & loosen the board a bit after you find the standoffs to get them in.

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 3:47 am

It was buggin me why those standoffs would not be there, I found the old board and sure enough they had unscrewed and were with the old board.
Got er mostly together, just installed windows, going for the drivers now.

Durring windows install file copies I was running about 98watts and less.
Once windows actually was installing and setting up I ran mostly at 69-75 watts sometimes peaking around 88watts. DVD drive reading the CD and reading/writing hard drive.

Installing drivers into windows is running around 75watts most the time, dropping to 69watts sometimes and peaking at 85watts a bit.

The highest watts I saw so far was 98watts for a very short time. I'll be glad to get it set up and doing some 3d rendering, that should max both cores and 4gigs DDR2 pretty good

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 9:13 am

Modern mobos with a modern 80 plus rated or better PSU are pretty energy efficient. You're still going to suck the watts when you're stressing the system (especially 3D gaming) but at idle the power use goes way down.

Always make sure to enable Cool 'n Quiet (AMD) or Speedstep (Intel) in BIOS to allow the OS to throttle down the CPU automatically when idle. Nowadays this technology is rock stable and if you're going to leave your system on 24/7 it's a good offset for the extra energy used.

The biggest power saver is a modern PSU. Older ones would just keep drawing a lot of power even when the system was idle, wasting electricity and generating heat for nothing.

Shadow250 · Post by **Shadow250** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 2:52 pm

mine sucks nearly 300 watts at full load. i got 3 hdd 2 dvd burners a water cooling system an 8800gt 19in lcd moniter 2 120mm case fans an amd 6000+ cpu and 2 gigs of ram. my psu is about 2 yrs old is that still considered modern?

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 3:10 pm

If it doesn't have at least an "80Plus" sticker on it (they make higher efficiency) it's not modern. There are various higher certifications. My workstation PSU is an 80Plus Bronze (82% efficient). I keep meaning to order one for my server which still has the factory OEM (and rather noisy) PSU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_PLUS

80 PLUS is an initiative to promote more electrical energy efficient computer power supply units (PSU). It certifies products that have more than 80% energy efficiency at 20%, 50% and 100% of rated load, and a power factor of 0.9 or greater at 100% load. That is, PSUs that waste 20% or less electric energy as heat at the specified load levels, thus reducing electricity use and bills compared to less efficient PSUs. Sometimes rebates are given for manufacturers who use 80 plus-certified PSUs.

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 7:06 pm

My new PC is idling now at 58Watts today. I got XP Pro installed and the video shuts down a bit.

I am not looking at any monitor power use, I figure I always turn off the monitor when not in use anyway so that is plugged into a seperate outlet for power.

I had a minor set back today, I used a Sata cable I already had and today the system beeped and then would not find the hard drive. After a bit of messing around I remembered I had problems before with a sata drive half the time not found and it was a bad cable, sure enough I had used the same cable this time

Now I still need to install software now.

I decided to go with the Enermax P/S as it has 17AMP on both 12V rails it says and 3 fans, also it runs the fans after shut down to cool the system instead of letting heat build up. I expect to be turning it off when not in use when I take it to other house.

The 80plus Antec I has 16amp on 12V1 and 15amp on 12V2 rails

Also the gold anodized aluminum Enermax case looks cool in my black case LOL
Though for once I plan to have the sides on anyway.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 7:19 pm

Hope you're not a serious game. 34 amps on the 12volt rails isn't much by today's standards. It's enough, but what I would consider the bare minimum.

My Dell 9200 came with a 32 amp PSU which was barely adequate for the 8800GT I had in there but not for the GTX260 I installed later so I upgraded.

But you said you were going with onboard for now so I guess gaming isn't a big issue?

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 1:12 am

FlyingPenguin wrote:Hope you're not a serious game. 34 amps on the 12volt rails isn't much by today's standards. It's enough, but what I would consider the bare minimum.

My Dell 9200 came with a 32 amp PSU which was barely adequate for the 8800GT I had in there but not for the GTX260 I installed later so I upgraded.

But you said you were going with onboard for now so I guess gaming isn't a big issue?

No I never been much on games really. Some simple stuff like Warcraft II or4 stuff like that sometimes is about all.
Can't get into the good stuff on dialup, so those old games do me fine for single player LOL