Calculating Wall Wattage

[Farmall200]

 

Hi All,

  So for fun today I put my build Ive been running for about 2 years now into Cooler Masters PSU wattage calculator, and determined something interesting. I currently run a 550W Thermaltake (Dont Laugh, I Know it's Cheap), and Cooler Master says that under full load I should be using almost 650W. Is there an easy way to tell just how much my system is actually pulling from the power supply, and am I doing any harm to my components by potentially running my PSU at full load?

[bgibbz]

https://www.amazon.com/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00E945SJG

[pcshme33]

If you were drawing max power from that psu, it would have blow up by now. If you want some peace of mind, just upgrade your power supply to something that can handle heavy loads like a evga g2 or p2. 

[Funtron5000]

Kill-a-watt: wall wattage meter.

[WoodenMarker]

If the system you're referring to is from your sig, it should pull less than ~400w at load. 

You're not running your psu at full load. PSU Calculators are unreliable for the most part.

Stick to measuring with a meter or power draw benchmarks instead. 

[SnowyMus]

Another thing to note is that the rating of the power supply isn't going to be the maximum power draw. If a PSU is only 80% efficient and it's rated for 550 W, then it'll actually draw 687.5 W from the wall at full usage.

 

Though those numbers do sound a bit off, so it's probably not that. You really have to use actual measurements when under load for the best accuracy.

[Farmall200]

1 minute ago, WoodenMarker said:

If the system you're referring to is from your sig, it should pull less than ~400w at load. 

You're not running your psu at full load. PSU Calculators are unreliable for the most part.

Stick to measuring with a meter or power draw benchmarks instead. 

 

Awesome, good to know. My sig is off a little, I do have a few more video cards in here for work, but I guess ill just grab a power meter from Amazon and check it off. Do you know what would happen if it was to try and draw more then the PSU could handle? It should just shut down right?

[STRMfrmXMN]

14 minutes ago, Farmall200 said:

 

Hi All,

  So for fun today I put my build Ive been running for about 2 years now into Cooler Masters PSU wattage calculator, and determined something interesting. I currently run a 550W Thermaltake (Dont Laugh, I Know it's Cheap), and Cooler Master says that under full load I should be using almost 650W. Is there an easy way to tell just how much my system is actually pulling from the power supply, and am I doing any harm to my components by potentially running my PSU at full load?

The system in your signature will use around 430W under load so that's a little funny of CM to suggest that it would use 650W, but who ever said that PSU calculators are accurate

[WoodenMarker]

Just now, Farmall200 said:

Awesome, good to know. My sig is off a little, I do have a few more video cards in here for work, but I guess ill just grab a power meter from Amazon and check it off. Do you know what would happen if it was to try and draw more then the PSU could handle? It should just shut down right?

A good psu should just shut down if you're trying to draw to much power. 

[Farmall200]

Just now, WoodenMarker said:

A good psu should just shut down if you're trying to draw to much power. 

 

Thats what I thought. I dont do much with personal computers anymore in terms of hardware, my bread and butter is server hardware. The hospital I work at runs blades, and I know if a blade tries to draw to much the server will throttle down the blade and move work around the different servers to balance out loads and stress on the PSU'S