Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!axion!tsa!domo
From: domo@tsa.co.uk (Dominic Dunlop)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Leaving computer ewquipment on all the time
Message-ID: <1990Sep17.180302.568@tsa.co.uk>
Date: 17 Sep 90 18:03:02 GMT
References: <1084@beguine.UUCP>
Reply-To: domo@tsa.co.uk (Dominic Dunlop)
Organization: The Standard Answer Ltd.
Lines: 25

In article <1084@beguine.UUCP> Jeff.Miller@samba.acs.unc.edu
(BBS Account) writes:
> Someone asked if PC's really do consume 200 watts: 
Seems like the right number -- plus or minus a good fifty percent.
>  
> [Useful hints omited]
> 
> Measuring power consumption
> for computers is complicated by the fact that the curent is drawn as a
> narrow high-current pulse that tricks most AC voltmeters.

This is true.  But, luckily for the power utilities, it does not fool the
meter which measures your house power consumption, and from which your
electric bill is generated.  So, if you're in a position where you can
kill most or all of the other electrical appliances connected to the
meter, you can laboriously count how many times the disk rotates as you
turn parts of your PC on and off, and so establish their power
consumption with reasonable accuracy.

Myself, I turn off my two-page monitor at night, and I certainly turn
off my laser printer.  Although laser printers have no objection to
being powered continuously, they have a steady state power consumption
of several hundred watts (and even more when printing).
-- 
Dominic Dunlop