How much power does a PC take?

[OnionRings]

So we all know about wattage, idle loads, heavy loads, all that. But what about amps? Do those remain constant? I have a pretty old house with only 1 working socket, I can have generally 1 heavy amp item in the socket and my power strip with my smaller amp items like my ps4, fan, tv, chargers, w/e, and right now my PC is in it, but what would happen if I also plugged in a window unit AC? I normally run a small heater in the winter and an AC in the summer, well its heating up pretty good outside and my fan isn't cutting it, I need my AC, but if I plug it in will I blow my socket and fry my PC? The socket isn't even grounded, it worries me.

 

Now I know you guys may not know the exact answer to if my socket will blow, because you don't know the load it can handle, neither do I, so I'm more or less asking about the amp on power supplies, do they remain at a constant rate or do they fluctuate like wattage? Do you think a desktop PC 520w is enough to really bog down a socket?

 

Here is my PSU https://seasonic.com/product/s12ii-520/

Edited May 28, 2016 by OnionRings

[Godlygamer23]

It depends on the computer. Amperage changes when the system load decreases and increases, but the voltages stay the same except when dealing with the individual components(for example when a CPU requests less voltage from the VRM). 

 

Your equation to determine the wattage of something is IV=W where I equals amperage(or current), V equals voltage, and W equals Watts. Determining amperage, your equation would be I=W/V, and determining voltage, the equation would be V=W/I. 

[OnionRings]

1 minute ago, Godlygamer23 said:

It depends on the computer. Amperage changes when the system load decreases and increases, but the voltages stay the same except when dealing with the individual components(for example when a CPU requests less voltage from the VRM). 

 

Your equation to determine the wattage of something is IV=W where I equals amperage(or current), V equals voltage, and W equals Watts. Determining amperage, your equation would be I=W/V, and determining voltage, the equation would be V=W/I. 

Oh shit, I'm terrible at math...

 

It would help if I knew exactly what my socket could take/what my ac takes/what's already plugged in is pulling.

Edited May 28, 2016 by OnionRings

[porina]

In short, power = volts multipled by amps. Normally voltage is fixed, so power and current scale with each other. Load of the PC will vary depending on what you're doing with it. Idle will be very different than if you ran furmark and prime95 at the same time.

 

I think a good start would be putting numbers to each device that is connected. There are devices that plug in between the wall socket and what you then plug into that, and show you the actual power used at the time. Worldwide standards vary but you can then use those numbers to work out how close you might be to what the nominal limit it.

[OnionRings]

3 minutes ago, porina said:

In short, power = volts multipled by amps. Normally voltage is fixed, so power and current scale with each other. Load of the PC will vary depending on what you're doing with it. Idle will be very different than if you ran furmark and prime95 at the same time.

 

I think a good start would be putting numbers to each device that is connected. There are devices that plug in between the wall socket and what you then plug into that, and show you the actual power used at the time. Worldwide standards vary but you can then use those numbers to work out how close you might be to what the nominal limit it.

Right, now what are the odds I try the AC, but I blow the socket, no biggie I just go flip the breaker, but on a non grounded socket, will I fry anything? Obviously that's cutting full power from my PC in the middle of w/e its doing, could that harm it? Also how would I test it fully? Load up a really intense game on the highest settings possible? Think that would push the load enough? I think the most challenging things I do on this pc are render and game.

 

I've never fried anything yet, but that was all small stuff, it was as simple as turning it off, flipping the breaker, removing objects from the walls. But never done with a PC. 

Edited May 28, 2016 by OnionRings

[soup]

If in America voltage is about 110V

Max(ish) that power supply can draw is Power/voltage=520/110 so 4.7 amps

if in Britain/uk voltage is about 240

so max(ish) is Power/Voltage=520/240 so 2.1 amps

 

The socket can handle lots of amps but the wiring is the limiting factor

 

BTW That reads as if you only have one socket in the whole house. I take it you mean you live in an old house and there is only one working socket in your room

[porina]

3 minutes ago, OnionRings said:

Right, now what are the odds I try the AC, but I blow the socket, no biggie I just go flip the breaker, but on a non grounded socket, will I fry anything? Obviously that's cutting full power from my PC in the middle of w/e its doing, could that harm it? Also how would I test it fully? Load up a really intense game on the highest settings possible? Think that would push the load enough? I think the most challenging things I do on this pc are render and game.

 

I've never fried anything yet, but that was all small stuff, it was as simple as turning it off, flipping the breaker, removing objects from the walls. But never done with a PC. 

Get the power meter, they're not expensive. Say what part of the world are you in and I can try looking up an example. When you get one, you can try each device by itself and get a measure of its needs. Actually, the breaker should have a rating on it, what is it?

 

Uncontrolled shutting off a PC may be undesired but unlikely to do lasting harm as an infrequent event. Try whatever your use scenarios are, gaming, rendering, and see how it varies. There isn't an easy way to predict this.

 

Non-grounding is more a safety thing. Power does not normally flow on ground. In case of a certain faults, it is supposed to take the power, and not you.

[OnionRings]

1 minute ago, soup said:

If in America voltage is about 110V

Max(ish) that power supply can draw is Power/voltage=520/110 so 4.7 amps

if in Britain/uk voltage is about 240

so max(ish) is Power/Voltage=520/240 so 2.1 amps

 

The socket can handle lots of amps but the wiring is the limiting factor

Yea being such an old house (Like from the 30s) I don't know, I might try to find someone to inspect my house for me and then if its faulty force my landlord to fix the shit, I pay rent to use the house and its appliances but I can only use 1 mother facking outlet in my room? Hell naw. In case anybody was wondering or cared I have 2 outlets but I can't use the other one because it was REALLY old, it had ONE socket hole TWO PRONG LIKE WOT. So some guy we knew put a face plate on it with two 3 prong sockets but im too scared to try and use it.

[wolfsbane3083]

And here's me running 16 plugs off a 2-gang socket  

Best to have a leccy check it out if you're worried though.

[TetraSky]

1 hour ago, OnionRings said:

So some guy we knew put a face plate on it with two 3 prong sockets but im too scared to try and use it.

If the wiring is done properly, it should work just fine.
As long as you mean that he installed something like the following, by first removing the old outlet

 
and not some kind of adapter on top of whatever you had before.

 

But considering most old houses have all the outlets from a given room on the same circuit breaker... and often the outlets from the next room over as well, what you're asking may or may not, be ok, it depends. In general, a single circuit breaker can only take 15A. If all that you are plugging on it exceed this, it will work for a few seconds/minutes and then the circuit protection will jump. This can even be worse if the house is really old and whoever did the wiring was completely dumb and put every single wall sockets of the house, on the same 15A circuit breaker... (except for 2 or 3 separate circuit breaker for the fridge, washing machine and possibly the counter-top's socket, used for microwaves and what not.)

I suggest closing the circuit breaker(in the electrical panel of your house, if you don't see any ON/OFF switches, you're probably looking in the wrong panel) of your room and see which other sockets are still working or not, this will give you an idea of what else is on the same circuit breaker. 

A typical AC unit can take between 7A and 10A, so assuming your room has its own circuit breaker, it leaves you with just a bit left over, enough for a typical desktop PC, but maybe not for the console at the same time.

I suggest you go and just buy yourself something like a Blue Planet Energy Meter

This will more or less tell you how many Amps a given appliance/device uses, after that just look at the specifications of the AC unit that you want/have and see how many Amperage it uses.