61 replies to this topic

[Xoligy]

I know what you mean Detection im same on pay and go and british gas for electric i have been turning the computer off when i goto bed and setting utorrent to shut down the computer if its downloading over the past few months and noticed quite abit of electric being saved (imo) as you said its painful looking at that meter and it dont help that mines in the kitchen (looks over shoulder as he cooks and cringes lol) But sometimes i think the less electric i have the quicker it goes o.O lol

[+BudMan]

Well different machines draw different power.. You got some supped up box with dual graphic cards with fans? Are you running something in the background that uses idle cpu so your at 100% all the time? Seti, Folding, etc..

A normal pc is not going to draw very much when not in use, and when use for surfing, posting, email, etc. Now playing some full screen graphics game, sure thats going to draw a bit more juice, etc.

Never heard of these pay as you go power, thats kind of kewl and crazy at the same time. Kind of a hassle having to refill it all the time, etc. And would kind of suck watching money just suck down the drain like that

Pick up a killawatt if your interested in power usage.

[Xoligy]

MY pc is browsing, gaming movies, music and torrenting i don use seti or anything like that. Its only a Duel core so i dont play intense games wither more stratergy though the odd fps that does work ill play.

As for pay and go electric its all over britain, some people say its more expensive than doing direct debit or paying for what you used but for alot of households that struggle with money or are just crap at saving (like me) its the best option as you paid upfront. What happens if you run out? Well between 70p - £1 it starts to beep and you can access emergency electric (or gas as youg et pay and go gas too) and that will loan you £5 supply so you have time to get some more, topups are normally done in a shops and £5 can last a few days depending on what you ahve running of cause.

[Detection]

BudMan, on 11 January 2013 - 15:07, said:

Well different machines draw different power.. You got some supped up box with dual graphic cards with fans? Are you running something in the background that uses idle cpu so your at 100% all the time? Seti, Folding, etc..

A normal pc is not going to draw very much when not in use, and when use for surfing, posting, email, etc. Now playing some full screen graphics game, sure thats going to draw a bit more juice, etc.

Never heard of these pay as you go power, thats kind of kewl and crazy at the same time. Kind of a hassle having to refill it all the time, etc. And would kind of suck watching money just suck down the drain like that

Pick up a killawatt if your interested in power usage.

Not a super high end machine but decent spec, and its generally just used for forums tbh, watching maybe one film a day connected to the TV, maybe as little as an hour of gaming per week

Definitely going to invest in one of those killawatt meters though

And yea the pay and go meters are exactly as you say, but the main reason for them is so you don't end up with a bill you can't pay at the end of the month / quarter, you very quickly learn to budget so you're not sat in the dark before you get paid again

Plus the pay points to top the keys up are generally at every shop you can think of, corner shops, garages, supermarkets, off-licences, so you're never far from somewhere if needs be, and if you are caught short when everywhere is closed, there is £6.00 emergency credit on the key you can use and pay back next time you top up (Think of it as an overdraft lol )

Meter





Key

[neufuse]

Lilrich, on 11 January 2013 - 13:06, said:

Yes it will be fine.

Turning the computer on and off constantly can reduce the hard disks life.

yet the standard hard disk has a sleep mode which turns the spindle motor off..... same thing as turning the system off..

[Detection]

Xoligy, on 11 January 2013 - 14:58, said:

I know what you mean Detection im same on pay and go and british gas for electric i have been turning the computer off when i goto bed and setting utorrent to shut down the computer if its downloading over the past few months and noticed quite abit of electric being saved (imo) as you said its painful looking at that meter and it dont help that mines in the kitchen (looks over shoulder as he cooks and cringes lol) But sometimes i think the less electric i have the quicker it goes o.O lol

lol yea it does 100% lol, mine is in a little cupboard above the stairs and has a little personality of its own, it enjoys hanging on £0.53p all evening so I can't put the emergency on and then soon as I get into bed.... beepbeepbeepbeepbeep

or

Makes me think there is loads of electric left, waits until its pitch black outside and I have no idea where my torch is, doesn't beep at all, and does the whole Terminator shutdown thing, Pewwww, blind, blind, where TF is the torch, where TF is the key, oww, oww

[LaP]

Detection, on 11 January 2013 - 14:52, said:

Gonna have to get me one of those meters then, I've always just assumed the PC was the biggest drain during the night

These days a computer when idle takes pretty much nothing. I don't know how much wattage is used by a pc when idle but it's probably less than a light bulb. This is of course if the computer is properly configured to stop the HDs when not used, to turn off the monitor and to throttle down the cpu and gpu when idle.

[Detection]

LaP, on 11 January 2013 - 15:54, said:

These days a computer when idle takes pretty much nothing. I don't know how much wattage is used by a pc when idle but it's probably less than a light bulb. This is of course if the computer is properly configured to stop the HDs when not used, to turn off the monitor and to throttle down the cpu and gpu when idle.

That's probably one of the problems, I've got HDDs to stay on for 4 hours idle before spinning down, 1. for wear and tear of continuously having to spin back up every 10 minutes and 2. because I was sick of trying to open a folder and it hanging while it waited for the disk to spin up

Power savings are all disabled for the CPU too, & OCd but generally sits at 0% load while I`m here / browsing

It wouldn't cost less than one of my lightbulbs lol, I've fitted energy saving bulbs all over the house, its always the 1st thing I do when I move in somewhere, saves a fortune and they last forever

[Guth]

we have a key meter too and in our hold house if it ran out then you were sat in the dark all night (live in a tiny town with no 24hr shops, closes is 30 miles away).
However in our new house, it wont go off between 8pm and 8am (7-9 in the winter) so thats quite a nice feature

I just pressed the emergency today, woke up and power was off lol. Must remember to get more

Also my meter is outside, is that wierd? You guys seem to have them inside, that'd be way better.
I've seen myself out at night with nothing on my feet in the rain trying to get into the box to put it back onlol

Also, we have oil heating and our old boiler didnt need electric to keep running, only to start it. But our new one does, so if the electrics out, so is the heating

[Detection]

Guth, on 11 January 2013 - 16:21, said:

we have a key meter too and in our hold house if it ran out then you were sat in the dark all night (live in a tiny town with no 24hr shops, closes is 30 miles away).
However in our new house, it wont go off between 8pm and 8am (7-9 in the winter) so thats quite a nice feature

I just pressed the emergency today, woke up and power was off lol. Must remember to get more

Also my meter is outside, is that wierd? You guys seem to have them inside, that'd be way better.
I've seen myself out at night with nothing on my feet in the rain trying to get into the box to put it back onlol

Also, we have oil heating and our old boiler didnt need electric to keep running, only to start it. But our new one does, so if the electrics out, so is the heating

Not clicking off from 8pm-8am is a great feature, I wish we had that sometimes

Our electric is inside but gas meter by law now has to be outside so when it runs out its generally because its freezing outside and always late at night too and we have to go outside freezing our butts off waiting for the slow-assed meter to turn the gas back on

Electric meter takes 2 seconds to top up, push key in, beep, pull key out

Gas meter, put card in, wait for meter to wake up, wait for meter to realise there is a card in, wait for meter to realise the gas is off, wait for meter to realise we have emergency on the card, tell us to press this button for gas, tell us to let go, tell us gas is off push and hold to turn gas on, tell us to let go of button, stand up rubbing hands stamping feet watching breath in air, wait for gas meter to click and turn gas on, stand shouting HURRY THE **** UP! At the meter, eventually meter says Emergency on

Why not just have the exact same method as electric? Same fookin company! lol

[+warwagon]

Well, 4 of my computers stay on 24/7. 3 of which all have 1 Hard drive (SSD) My main computer also has an SSD but also have 4 other drivers.

[hckngrtfakt]

warwagon, on 11 January 2013 - 16:32, said:

Well, 4 of my computers stay on 24/7. 3 of which all have 1 Hard drive (SSD) My main computer also has an SSD but also have 4 other drivers.

Same here, actually during winter, all of my PCs run 24/7 (folding farm) while at early spring only 4 run 24/7
(gotta keep pumping those WU deadlines)

[Detection]

warwagon, on 11 January 2013 - 16:32, said:

Well, 4 of my computers stay on 24/7. 3

You have 7.3 days in a week? No fair!

[+littleneutrino]

i keep my desktop on 24/7 and have for years with out any issues.

[Xoligy]

Detection, on 11 January 2013 - 16:31, said:

Not clicking off from 8pm-8am is a great feature, I wish we had that sometimes

Our electric is inside but gas meter by law now has to be outside so when it runs out its generally because its freezing outside and always late at night too and we have to go outside freezing our butts off waiting for the slow-assed meter to turn the gas back on

Electric meter takes 2 seconds to top up, push key in, beep, pull key out

Gas meter, put card in, wait for meter to wake up, wait for meter to realise there is a card in, wait for meter to realise the gas is off, wait for meter to realise we have emergency on the card, tell us to press this button for gas, tell us to let go, tell us gas is off push and hold to turn gas on, tell us to let go of button, stand up rubbing hands stamping feet watching breath in air, wait for gas meter to click and turn gas on, stand shouting HURRY THE **** UP! At the meter, eventually meter says Emergency on

Why not just have the exact same method as electric? Same fookin company! lol

Yeh the gas meters are slow and you have to wait to press the "A" button like its THAT important. As for them being outside by law, mines indoors but then im in a converted house and i have the upstairs and neighbor downstairs.

@Guth i would hate my meter being outside speciaally during winter plus i would always loose the key/card so i leave them in the meters all time till top up day, also i have to climb onto the kitchen workbench to "topup" my electric for some reason they thought it be a good idea to put it up high over the counters.