It’s disturbing how high electricity bills get. I performed a test and found that with no A/C or heater, and no light other than one single bulb lamp in the room I occupy plus using my laptop and the TV I still had a bill of $260. That is still cheaper than the $380 from last month, but still it’s a lot to pay for an apartment with NO A/C or heater.
-Bobby
Anony said: “that $600k price tag is a HOUSE in the WORST Area.”
I beg to differ. This is a common misconception, and while it is true that there are plenty of million-dollar houses in the Bay Area, it doesn’t mean that $600K only buys a pit.
My two-bedroom bungalow with a plot of land and a garage, in a quiet, friendly, safe neighborhood near the Rose Garden in San Jose only cost $560K at the end of 2005 (BEFORE housing prices started to go down).
If you want 3,000 square feet, 4 bedrooms, a bathroom with jacuzzi that’s bigger than most bedrooms, and a three-car garage… well, yes, you’ll need to bring a million dollars or more to the table. But while some people are concerned about the cost of running their computer 24/7, they should be more concerned about the size and inefficiency of their house and the cost to keep it climate controlled.
heh heh, jeff’s two-year-old post got life-haxored!
Why not just turn off your computer when you’re not using it?
I am all for conservation. $$ is not the real issue. What if I have kids?
For those not running a server or DVR, remember standby mode consumes WAY less power, and mine only takes a few secs to come back to life.
Think of everything you do being magnified throughout the course of years.
It used to be that the big things mattered most (fridge, washer, heating, etc.) and while they still do matter a lot, especially older appliances and electric heaters, we now live in the gadget age, and the tiny stuff is adding up big time.
We are paying about 0.25 Kwh here in California- it is confusing since the peak is charged at the highest rate. Ouch! Maybe $$ really is an issue too.
Funny how this older thread is hot again!
"Why not just turn off your computer when you’re not using it?"
Good Point. If what your running on your computer isn’t 100% necessary, turn the damn thing off.
CyBear,
When I bought my last house, it had 100W bulbs everywhere.
I first replaced them with 40W bulbs, and guess what. They were brighter. The 100’s got dark over time because of the heat!
I replaced about 20 100W bulbs with 14w CF bulbs where they were just turn on/off situations, and the dimming outlets all have 40W incandecents, which is actually enough light.
I don’t need it super bright, it just makes ugly people even uglier 
so I’m guessing if I have at least 2 pcs, 1 server, and and HD DVR on all the time I’m probably wasting a lot of energy/money…?
Jesus Christ. 15 cents per kilowatt hour back in '05?!?!?! I’m on a fixed plan at 7 cents.
I’m surprised no one here has mentioned true energy consumption which is way more important than money. A 65 watt computer left running full time consumes a barrel of oil (equivalent) in a year. 5,500,000 btu/barrel / 10,000 btu/kwh / 8760 hrs/year = 63 watts.
So just go get yourself a Mac Mini. It uses about 10-15 watts, way less energy than the 75 watt new Dual Core desktop which I sent packing (to a customer who wanted one).
Leave in on and it sleeps at less than a watt. The other ran 10 watts in sleep mode. What’s wrong with this picture?
Bonus? My new Mac Mini Dual Core is faster on XP than my other new desktop was on Vista.
How come CRT is double usage of power than LCD ?
To the guy who said that you should be pulling down $140k in Santa Clara and then $200k/yr within five years. What are you smoking?! Very experienced software developers don’t pull down $140k in most places in the bay area. The median income in the bay is something like $50k or $60k and a good programming will make about six figures (give or take a little). They’re certainly not going to be pulling down $200k.
And the cost of living is actually much higher in the bay than anywhere else. For one thing, you have sales taxes which are about 9%. In Oregon, you have no sales tax. In California, state income tax is about 9.3% and in Denver, it’s 4.62%. Then you have electricity, which starts around twelve cents per kwH versus about 6 or 7 cents in Denver and Portland.
Then, of course, gas is more expensive and you go through a lot more gas because travel time is a couple hours in each direction and you spend a lot more time just sitting idle in your car on the freeway. And then there’s the extra taxes levied on your vehicle just for owning a vehicle.
There’s a reason BURGER FLIPPERS start out at ten bucks an hour in the bay area.
“I am all for conservation. $$ is not the real issue. What if I have kids?”
Huh? That paragraph makes no sense. So what if you have kids…?
Very Cool! You can really save energy with just about anything. Have a spare guest room? Unplug everything in it when not in use, turn off the vents and shut the door, will save you a nice chunk. I’ve always figured anything that runs 24 hours a day (like a plug in clock) costs about $1 a watt a year. Battery power clocks are cheaper!
I run about 8 computers 24/7 in my home. The rest of them only when needed. I do not have a problem with their utility bill especially during the cold weather time. They are simply helping the heater in the house. What my point is, half the time you keep your computer on, will be saving you money on your heating bill.
Just a point to make you feel a bit better if you leave your computer on 24/7.
I run about 8 computers 24/7 in my home. The rest of them only when needed. I do not have a problem with their utility bill especially during the cold weather time. They are simply helping the heater in the house. What my point is, half the time you keep your computer on, will be saving you money on your heating bill.
Just a point to make you feel a bit better if you leave your computer on 24/7.
This article needs updating…
Latest PC’s suck down a lot of power. Latest graphics card sucks about twice that of CPU on full load. AMD X2 6000+ would use 120W on full load, whereas 2900XT will use around 350W.
Best advise - figure out what the ultimate goal of your PC is:
Games - get latest rig and turn it off whenever you’re not playing.
ghaphic processing/design etc - as a above.
Browsing internet - get yourself a laptop. latest laptops would use about 20-25Watts on peak load (you heard it).
I have been playing around with low power computers the past year.
The Mini ITX computers with a DC-DC power converter are nice, just use about 20 watts max for the whole system.
I also got some of the gOS motherboards and built systems with them using high efficient power supples, they draw 40 watts when running normally, 60 watts when booting from the DVD drive. I think that not all of the power saving features of the system are turned on, hoping to half this watt rating with the system in idle and the drives spun down.
The decTOP was really cool. I replaced the drives inside of it with 1 or 2 GB solid state drives. The system only draws 4 watts when running, 6 watts when booting. It was a touch slow though. With a high high efficient monitor of some kind I bet you could run a complete computer system 24/7 for free with a single solar panel and a big battery or two.
Surprisingly I loaded Linux on some old Compaq IA-1’s, little computers with attached LCD monitors and the complete system only drew 13 watts when the screen was on, or 9 watts with the screen off. Unfortunately the system requires a standard wall plug-in or it would be perfect for solar power. As is you’d lose some efficiency inverting the DC volts to 110 AC for the device.
Just wanted to say their are the hidden costs that you also need to think about when saving money on the power bill, but having to recoup the fees for the investment. The ultimate hidden cost is the environment, how much was it costing us to have your big server in the closet running? Oh about 2000tons of co2 per year… So thank you for going green! Even though we are not charged for the co2 we put in the air we are going to pay the price in some manner. On that note I want to say that the ozone layer is more important as it is now we could pump more co2 in the environment without temperature change, but its just not good to have the co2 their if we lose more ozone then we will gain more heat… But their are other scary things that could happy like a run-away effect, or cacade effect higher barometric pressure for instance leading to less rain cause water is not evaporating…
I do not mean to contradict you paul, but I have to add a comment about what you siad reguarding the MRI machines…
“typically about 1700 liters of liquid helium. guess how much electricity it takes to keep that in a liquid state? huge amounts.”
If you know anything about chemistry, which I am going to assume you do not from your statement, if you takes Charles or Boyle’s gas laws which state …
Charles law (At constant pressure, the volume of a given mass of an ideal gas increases or decreases by the same factor as its temperature (in kelvin) increases or decreases. )
Boyle’s Law which deals with pressure vs volume in a closed system,
Anyway, if a hospital has an MRI machine and places the helium in a closed system with a high amount of pressure, the helium will naturally revert to a liquid state eventually. So what will this basic early 1900 marvel of chemistry gas laws cost the hospital or medical facility to run a liquid helium colling system… Nothing… NADA… ZIP… this phenomenon that I am talking about is seen in almost everything. You computer wizzes use a can of compressed air shake it and at the cost of no electricity there is liquid oxygen in the can. Go outside to your BBQ and shake the propane tank. Again liguid propane under pressure.
The only cost a hospital does incure while running this system is compressor. When the “liquid gas” passes through the heated area it is expanded into a bigger pipe. this allows the liquid to draw the heat. The compressor then forces the gas to a smaller pipe where it again condenses. So the cost of cooling an MRI machine is no different then using a common airconditioner, refridgerator, or any other cooling device that uses a compressor.
The reason for using “helium” is it is a small inert element and therefore will move faster causing more collisions in the container, drawing away more heat. However the compressor will move it to the smaller area, having it again release the heat. That is why your airconditioner is kicking out heat on the other side. Basically what I am saying in a nut shell is it does not matter what type of gas you have in a closed cooling system you will stilluse the same amount of electricity and the only thing drawing power is the compressor and maybe a fan if it is not direct like you car engine/anti freeze