PC ENERGY CONSUMPTION (HELP!)

[OBELISKxxx]

Alright,

good morning folks! I'm new here at linus' forum.

I just wanted to ask about something.

So I was really hooked into the idea of energy saving. so ok here we go

i usually leave my pc at idle when downloading games i just turn off my monitor and unplug it at the socket.

but i am really curious if you remove for example the mouse and the keyboard and other input devices in your system unit only leaving the Ethernet cable in. does this help reduce the consumption that your system unit is eating off of you electricity?

thanks in advance for your answers! <3 

 

[BLLDoesTech]

Just now, OBELISKxxx said:

Alright,

good morning folks! I'm new here at linus' forum.

I just wanted to ask about something.

So I was really hooked into the idea of energy saving. so ok here we go

i usually leave my pc at idle when downloading games i just turn off my monitor and unplug it at the socket.

but i am really curious if you remove for example the mouse and the keyboard and other input devices in your system unit only leaving the Ethernet cable in. does this help reduce the consumption that your system unit is eating off of you electricity?

thanks in advance for your answers!

 

do you have a light up/RGB mouse or keyboard?

[OBELISKxxx]

I'm actually a budget gamer, so no i don't have rgb.

[BLLDoesTech]

1 minute ago, OBELISKxxx said:

I'm actually a budget gamer, so no i don't have rgb.

then it won't do anything, unplugging your monitor is the only thing you could do to save

[Electronics Wizardy]

What hardware do you have? I c states, speed setup on? There really isn't that much you can do to save power.

[corrado33]

If you want to save electricity then simply plug your computer (and monitor) into a surge strip and shut the computer down and turn the surge strip off every time you're not using it. 

 

And/Or buy a a more efficient power supply. 

[Fasauceome]

If you really want to save power, look up how to enable hibernation mode. It's the ultimate low power state. When downloading games, unplugging usb devices can help reduce power, so you should get a USB hub that you can just unplug instead of each device individually.

[OBELISKxxx]

Thanks a lot for your answers guys!

[Froody129]

Undervolting while playing games will have a much bigger impact than unplugging a keyboard with lights

[OBELISKxxx]

can you please give more emphasis about undervolting? thanks! I'm really not that good at it

[Cassini]

Undervolting is essentially decreasing the voltage that a component, like a GPU or CPU, uses at a certain clock speed.  For instance, if a graphics card runs at  1.150V for a core clock speed of 1230 MHz, it would pull more power than if the card ran at 1.100V according to Ohm's Law (P=IV) given that the processor pulls the same amount of current, I, as before.  However, if an insufficient core voltage is provided to the card at a certain clock speed, this can cause instability in the form of application crashes or blue screens.  When you undervolt, the goal is to consume less overall power.  Other than saving energy, undervolting also reduces the temperature that these components run at, which has a number of benefits.

 

There are a number of undervolting guides out there like one from Linus himself: 

 

 

I would highly recommend looking up 'undervolting [name of your CPU or GPU] guide' on Google to get a general idea for what voltages these components require, what kind of undervolts you can expect to get, and more general tips.  It should definitely be noted that not all processors will underclock the same.  One person's GPU may only need 1.050V at 1230MHz, while another's needs 1.100V.

 

However, undervolting will not do much for power consumption at idle since the computer isn't consuming as much power to begin with.

 

Finally, undervolting (like overclocking and overvolting) carries a level of risk of component damage, so it is advisable that you learn about what you plan to do and how it works before taking action.

 

If this is of interest, I (and most definitely other users) can help with the undervolting process. 

 

Hopefully this helps a little!

[OBELISKxxx]

thanks a lot!

[mariushm]

On 11/30/2018 at 2:53 AM, OBELISKxxx said:

Alright,

good morning folks! I'm new here at linus' forum.

I just wanted to ask about something.

So I was really hooked into the idea of energy saving. so ok here we go

i usually leave my pc at idle when downloading games i just turn off my monitor and unplug it at the socket.

but i am really curious if you remove for example the mouse and the keyboard and other input devices in your system unit only leaving the Ethernet cable in. does this help reduce the consumption that your system unit is eating off of you electricity?

thanks in advance for your answers! 

 

You don't need to unplug the monitor from the mains socket. With the monitor turned off from the button, the monitor will use less than 1w of power while plugged in.

Mouse and keyboard use very little power, less than 1-2 watts each. A bit more if they have a lot of leds, but typically less than 2-3$.

 

You're concentrating your saving attempts in the wrong places.

 

Think of it like this: If you're in US, you're paying around 0.10 .. 0.15$ (*)  for 1 kWh (that's 1000 watts continuously for one hour, or 1w continuous consumption for 1000 hours)

There's 24 hours x 31 days = 744 hours in a month so if you'd keep the monitor connected to mains electricity but OFF for a month, you'd pay less than 0.10$ in electricity.

 

You'd make way more power savings by upgrading your power supply from a particular efficiency class to another, or by going with a lower wattage power supply, and especially by undervolting components like processor and video card, and optionally reducing the operating frequencies of processors and video cards

 

Undervolting is the process where you fine tune the voltage used to power your processor or video card. There's no 2 perfectly identical processors, one may require 1.25v to achieve the advertised frequency and be stable at that temperature, the second processor may only need 1.20v ... and some processors as they age may gradually need more voltage to stay stable at a frequency (so for example the cpu tested and known to work at 1.25v may need 1.255v after 5 years of 24/7 usage.... so for these reasons a manufacturer may configure the operating voltage to something like 1.3v

If you test the cpu and know it runs at 1.2v just fine, then by doing this you may shave a few watts of power from the total power consumption of your PC.

 

 

 

* (most regions, Alaska, Hawaii etc may be more expensive)

 

[OBELISKxxx]

noted!

thanks a lot brother!