Energy consumption metering

[kowalsky]

hi all,
can anyone tell me if they ever came across a software that meters the energy consumed by a PC.
Basically I have two issues:
1. I googled until I lost my patience and the only sw I found were related to saving energy, but none of those had a measurement component; at this point that's my only interest: i want to know how many wats did i spent over how many hours ... i am not that good with google, nevertheless, i find it strange to be still empty handed after almost 2 hours of seach
2. I have to admit, maybe it is not that trivial to get this info from within the PC itself - I am interested in what the consumption is let's say in a cycle of 72 hours, and I am mostly interested in what the consumption is during the stand-by periods versus the active periods ... if I have a meter running it may be so that the PC does not get in stand by anymore ...

Anyway, if someone has any idea what I am looking for, please let me know,
thanks,
kowalsky

 

[hunter315]

You cant do it via software, it has to be done via hardware. You can use something like a kill-a-watt or an equivalent that can output a timeline to another computer so that you can see its power consumption in stand by periods.

 

[kowalsky]

thanks hunter315,
i am not fully convinced but common sense tells me that running any metering sw will make you kiss the stand-by goodbye.

one more question: i just flashed the bios on an old old box - asus p2b-f: i jumped from rev1009.B to 1013.A just because the old bios did not understand the power savings functions in XP. I have my doubts even now because I can still hear stuff turning in the PC - is it the power supply fan that is making all that noise? That will probably run all the time ...

thanks again,
kowalsky

 

[knotknut]

Would something work for you?

P3 Kill A Watt Electricity Load Meter and Monitor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001&Tpk=N82E16882715001

 

[sub mesa]

How could software know what power is being used by all components in your computer? Like your harddrive is going to tell? Like your power supply (who has its own inefficiency) is going to tell? There is no logic that sends this information in a way usable by software. Software can only see what hardware you have and guess what the usage could be; not measure.

It can measure voltage of your CPU though, and GPUs have some info about this as well. But that's it. Buy a real power meter, and make sure to get one that supports Power Factor Correction (PFC) or it will give false readings!

 

[kowalsky]

thank you all,
kill a watt is what i need - i wonder if there's any model that saves the measured data,
thanks,
kowalsky