trying to reduce energy usage

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tech-wreck

tech-wreck

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Jan 8, 2014
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i'm trying to reduce energy usage throughout my home, now i'm looking at all the computers...
my (teenage) son doesn't know what "off" means, so i'm wondering if i could downgrade his power supply.

the PSU is an OCZ 500w core xtreme powering an intel core i3 (stock coooler) in a H81 mobo, 2 1600mhz ram sticks, one ssd, one 2.5" hdd, couple of big fans and a HD6670 gpu. no overclocking going on or any other devices

could i get away with a good quality 200/250 watt power supply, or is that asking for trouble?
 
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Haydn Wood

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Dec 8, 2013
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Hi, Your power supply is 500watts but that doesn't mean it will pull 500watts the pc will use how ever much it needs so probs about 200watts at peak so there is no need to down grade. Hope this helps
 
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Solandri

Solandri

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Jan 4, 2012
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While power supplies are more efficient at about 70%-80% of their rated capacity, the power savings you're going to get from moving down probably isn't going to be that much (unless your 500W PSU absolutely sucks). For reference, the Sandy Bridge i5 system I have (no GPU) burns about 35 Watts idle, 100 Watts peak. The HD6670 looks like it's about 60 Watts from a quick google search. So 200 Watts should be sufficient for the system, 250 Watts if you want to be safe.

I'd suggest getting a cheap Kill-a-Watt. See how much power his computer is actually drawing when left idle. Program it with your current electric rates and leave it plugged in for a few days, and you can see how much it costs to leave his computer on 24/7 for a year. For the U.S. average of $0.12/kWh, each Watt is about $1 per year, so if the computer is left on idling at 100 Watts, that's about $100/yr in electricity it's burning.

If the amount turns out to be substantial, simply leave the computer plugged in through the Kill-a-Watt and charge your son for the electricity he's using. That'll get him to turn it off when he's not using it real quick. You'll have to do surprise inspections to make sure he isn't plugging the computer into a different socket when you're not looking. But you should be a pro at this sort of stuff if you've been a parent for 13+ years.

The easiest solution though would be to go into the computer's power settings and make it go to sleep after about 30 minutes of inactivity. He can wake it up by hitting a key or moving the mouse (or for the systems which don't wake up well, by hitting the power button once). That should work unless he's running some filesharing program 24/7 which prevents Windows from going to sleep. In which case you probably need to have a different talk with him about piracy and copyright infringement.
 
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