Power Usage

[stustunz]

I know this has been done before but wondered what people use to keep their power bills down
The power prices in New Zealand have been climbing for the past few years where it has now got to the point where I care

the server stays on (lounge) $$30plus /month
the bedroom client goes into standby $20/month (still to much in my opinion)
the popcorn hour is only on when i use it (theatre room) cheap less than $5
office pc $30/month (now turned off)
on top of this is all the other crap i have running amps lighting heating etc

So with all the idle things running in my house (no one home) I worked out its costing me roughly $150/month for nothing really


thinking of getting a few things to auto shut off when not in use
have people used anything for this sort of thing?
if so got any links or thoughts?

Do others make there servers go into standby?
If you do they come out of standby if another machine asks it to does it work well ?

May build a new recording machine that uses less power any thoughts on low power usage CPU/motherboard combo would be good also

[psycik]

Depends what your box does....if it's just a recording/playback device then you should be able to shut it down - windows 7 is supposed to be much better at this.

But with having clients, and if you have torrenting etc on your "server" then things get more difficult. As with clients they need to be able to wake the server up. There are many arguments for and against.

[JonnyCam]

See if your PC supports wake on lan from S5 - I know my office PC does, so I can send a magic packet and wake it from full shutdown (well, the lan port is obviously still getting power)
My server goes into standby.
My old M/B was great and would come out of standby on a directed packet, but my new one wakes up too often if I don't say magic packet only.
I made a little app which wakes the unraid server. PVR, or other PC's in the house (I have to run this on the bedroom pc before I can use the popcorn hour, as I haven't done any work on getting WOL working on the PCH itself)

One thing to try is to get all of your devices (minus the PC) hooked up to a remote control multibox, so when to turn things off for the night you then switch them all off at the wall too, cutting all that wasted energy. (you can get a 3 pack of outlets from Jaycar for $47, with one RF remote, which they claim 30m range)
I was thinking about copnnecting one of these to the bedroom PC and setting it to switch on when power returned, rather than using standby)

Our bills are around $100 / month for a large 3 bedroom apartment, but we don't use any electric heating (have a gas fire) and it's only for 2 of us. (plus gas cooktop)

I have 1 x linux unraid server (S3 standby)
1 x PVR (s3)
1 x PC (S5 / S3 - depending on if I remember)
1 x bedroom pc (s3)
1 x PCH (on most of the time, but not in gbpvr - I think it takes the same usage whether it's in standby or not)
(& amp, bluray, LCD, Plasma, Xbox in standby, plus MySky always on)

I turn off all appliances off at the wall where I can.
The microwave, oven, toaster (has a LED display) all use too much power to simply display a clock
Make sure your hot water cyclinder (if it's electric) is turned down to 55 deg - when we moved into our place, it was set to 70.

I thought my plasma would take a lot of power, but it didn't seem to when I had a power meter connected to it for a few days.

[ga_mueller]

Acer Revo 1600. $7US/yr electric bill, on 100% of the time. It's my client. My server uses much the same setup.

Nonetheless our gas+electric averages $150US/mo.

4 computers on all the time, a wife who enjoys every light on in our home, and never turns one off... and a backyard "waterfall" pump running 24x7.

It's a great life!

[stustunz]

the hot water should be no lower than 60deg c as it kills all the bugs
hot water is on separate meter and power is half price of normal which is a total of only about $30/month for hot water
plus the better half already moaned that we ran out of hot water when they ripple it

yeah i got a thing from jaycar its better than the rf one because it can be turn back on with ir remote so the bedroom pc now goes into hibernate after 1 minute of no use. This thing then detects the power drop ,kills the power completely then you hit the start button on the remote(learn any key you want) and that powers the pc back, takes 35seconds till you can select something to watch http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?...rm=KEYWORD
got another one for the popcorn hour/receiver/2 power amps but the popcorn hour uses no less power if turned off or on so still working on how to control all that stuff

also brought a power box turns everything off similar to the thing from jaycar but to turn back on you just wave your hand in front of the receiver(good for a desktop pc but no good for what i needed its probably going to end up on office pc

also using mce standby tool good for making standby do what you want

our power/gas is like $350 a month for 2 people thats why it was time to look at savings

So usage per hour with main server going and nothing else has dropped from $0.24/hour to about $0.05 while no one is home
so should have dropped the power bill by over $100 and really not much has changed as far as convenience goes

[JonnyCam]

I really like that Jaycar thing, will work a lot better than what I had planned with the RF remote.
(I'll have to go and get one for the xbox etc to all be off when the TV is)

Yeah, and correct regarding the HW temp, I was meaning 55 at the tap. Most HW cyclinders have those plastic clips which don't allow you to go below 60 deg.

[Azimuth]

The biggest consideration I have found with shutting off devices is the heat output. 3 LCD TVs, a large Plasma plus 4 NMT's and a server all put a bigger load on the Air Conditioning than I expected.
In the winter it can be 65^F outside and the AC unit is still running to keep the house at 77^F. on 100+^F days the AC unit barely keeps the house at 80^F unless I turn all of the above devices off. If you air condition your house you'll be surprised at how much more you'll save than just the raw input power use.
I have cut roughly 300KWH a month just by having the server hibernate after 30 minutes of inactivity.
Using the USB method of starting MVPMCX2 plus etherwake works well and I encourage anyone to try it.

[gEd]

FWIW: According to the little power meter I have, my server (in sig) consumes 11VA whilst in standby and about 120VA when running. I have it set to is go into standby after 20mins idle.

The Sony TV has about 3 power settings: Almost off, deep standby and warm-standby whereby the screen wakes up faster. I have it set to come up to warm standby from 17:00-00:00.

My power usage is now down 20% compared to last year, possibly aided by my spending a fortune on Megaman low-energy bulbs...

[stustunz]

Anyone know of anything that will shut pc down after a certain amount of time of inactivity
(I dont want hibernation or standby )

[pcostanza]

Anyone know of anything that will shut pc down after a certain amount of time of inactivity
(I dont want hibernation or standby )

There's SmartShutdown plus Lifehacker has some thoughts here.