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Wed 28 Jan, 2004 11:30 pm
Has anybody ever figured out how much it costs on your monthly electric bill if you leave your computer and monitor running all the time? If it $5.00, $10.00, $30.00 or more?
I've always left my computer running all the time but am thinking of shutting it off when I'm not using it to save money. My guess is that I will save about $15.00 per month.
The last I heard (okay, it was a while ago), the electric cost to burn a 100-watt lightbulb 24/7 for a month was about 25 cents. Would an energy-star computer/monitor take more or less than that?
Why not just turn the monitor off when you're not using it but leave the computer running. That's what I do most of the time. I've recently changed ISP's not only to get a cheaper rate but also because the soft session limits mean I don't get booted off after 4 hours. My last session lasted 75hours before I had to disconnect to use my phone. Phone calls is where I'll get the biggest saving.
I tried calculating the cost of leaving mine on (with the monitor on for about 4 hours/day) and came up with something just short of 1.5 KW/h per month.
With my current electrical rates that comes out to something like $1.25/month which makes it 1/10th the cost of the refrigerator.
I got 7.2kWh with the monitor on and 24 hours of use. That comes out to about $11/month. With the monitor off I would imagine it would be about $5/month.
ye110man wrote:I got 7.2kWh with the monitor on and 24 hours of use. That comes out to about $11/month. With the monitor off I would imagine it would be about $5/month.
Is that using the max power ratings of the equipment or the actual current load?
The power usage is actually a little less than your's, fishin. But I don't know where you're getting that cheap electricity from. I used 5 cents per kWh for my calculations. You get 3 cents per kWh electricity?
waiting for a consensus....
hehehe. Umm.. Yah. I forgot about including that in my calculations.. Ahh.. The town I'm in has it's own municiple electrical plant so and it generates enough electricity that it sells power to 3 neighboring towns at a slight profit. That profit is applied right back as a credit to the residents of my town and basically wipes out 70% of my bill.
I guess I need to go look at the actual rate instead of the "effective rate".
Even 5 cents is very cheap. If we use 8 cents per kWh it would be around $17/month for a computer with its monitor on running 24/7 or maybe $8/month with monitor off. The original poster was very close.
Wy wrote:The last I heard (okay, it was a while ago), the electric cost to burn a 100-watt lightbulb 24/7 for a month was about 25 cents. Would an energy-star computer/monitor take more or less than that?
100 watts x 24 hours x 30 days = 72kWh/month
72kWh/month x $.08/kWh = $5.76/month
You would save $2.30/month if you used a 60 watt light bulb instead.
I was surprised. Those pennies really add up.
When i leave for work in the morning, and when i retire for the night, i turn off the computer, the DSL modem (which is external) and the monitor. I do it to conserve electricity, and to make sure the box is not playing while i'm gone or sleeping. Were there a virus in the box, it would have to twiddle its electronic thumbs, because it won't be able to go on-line, and nothing would be happening. I also know that Winders has a really screwed up memory management function, so this in effect reboots the machine each time i sit down to use, which should clear the RAM, and speed up programs. As a very simple matter, i also don't like electric devices running while i sleep or while i'm out--reduced fire risk, as well as reduced bill.
I shut down the computer over-night and during work hours. I don't shut down the dsl and router though, because my housemates use those randomly.
Thanks for all of the answers. I had an idea that that's about how much power my computer uses up. I usually do turn off my monitor but there's those times I forget. It's probably as bad as leaving the TV on. Besides, leaving your monitor on all of the time only shortens the life of the tube unless it's one of those flat screens.
I don't believe you have to worry about the crt (cathode ray tube) in a standard monitor. You will likely purchase a new one long before the crt of your old monitor ever expires.
I recently installed six new flat screen monitors in the BOS plant where I work. I'll be putting another six in on Monday. It's amazing how quickly the screens are burning on them. Even with the 24/7 use they get, I still wouldn't have expected them to show this amount of detioration this quickly.
I have my LCD monitor programmed to shut off after 5 minutes of inactivity. I turn the computer on in the morning, and leave it on until I will no longer be accessing it, in the late evening.
I had read somewhere (don't know if it's true, but it makes sense) that leaving a computer on perpetually, can sometimes cause problems. In addition, where I live, there is a lot of lightning in the summer. Even though the computer has a surge supressor, I turn if off as soon as I hear the first clap of thunder.
Phoenix32890 wrote:I have my LCD monitor programmed to shut off after 5 minutes of inactivity. I turn the computer on in the morning, and leave it on until I will no longer be accessing it, in the late evening.
I had read somewhere (don't know if it's true, but it makes sense) that leaving a computer on perpetually, can sometimes cause problems. In addition, where I live, there is a lot of lightning in the summer. Even though the computer has a surge surpressor, I turn if off as soon as I hear the first clap of thunder.
I've never seen any evidence that leaving them on causes any problems. All the process machines stay on all the time, which means some are literally not turned off for several years. That's never caused any problems that I'm aware of. And we've got thousands of the damn things.
Wilso- I am concerned because of the quirky weather we have here in the summer. I have had many neighbors lose all sorts of appliances and equipment due to lightning strikes. In addition, I have heard that if you leave Windows running perpetually, you could run into some problems.
I would expect that in a business setting, there are a lot stronger electrical safeguards attched to the computers than are available for home use.
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