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Electric Cost's!!!!! how much are you paying to run that MBP or MP?

liketom

liketom

macrumors 601
Original poster
Apr 8, 2004
4,191
68
Lincoln,UK
I wondered into Maplins the other day and picked up some Energy Efficient Lightbulb's and a Electric Power Monitor
like this one -
n42fr_2.jpg


thinking this would give me an idea on how much electric i'm wasting and where.

well 48 hours later i'm still turning light's off and trying my best to get the Watts down to 0 :D

some internet research has brought up some very shocking facts on the running cost's of thing's in my home.

for example:

Panasonic TH42PX8 - In-Use: 255W- Standby: 0.7W cost per year to run =£82.30 & £0.68 on standby
Mac Pro 2.66Ghz £76.64 and £7.97 a year in standby
another one :

my Macbook Pro cost me £26 per year to run and £1.53 in standby
my PS3 is a real hog! Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) - 60gb cost's £40.88 a year to run ! compare to my PSone(£1.08 a year to run) it a real hungry hog!

Take a look and see where your hard earned money is going !



and as a big shocker the Dell Latitude d420 12" Craptop only cost's £8.14 a year to run ?

now in my house i have gizmo's everywhere 2 x big screen tv's ps3/wii mac's all over the place - APE x 2 ,TC, 5 x External HDD's ,Setop boxes with HDD and DVD recorder, Amp, too many halogen light fittings , powershower , microwave , frezer, fridge, dishwasher ...... and so on

i'm going to try and slim back on devices - i've started with the light's replacing them with the new energy one's so instead of 100w/60w bulbs i've got the new 10-12w green one's


Any thought's?
 
da2005pizimp said:
it's amazing what things cost to run, no big surprise on the ps3 that thing is a beast
Click to expand...

It's actually on par with the 360 (though that thing has a better video chip and the PS3 has a slightly better, if different CPU).

I'd love to get my hands on one of them. For years I've been running iMacs, laptops and always preferred handheld gaming over consoles. Makes my decision to buy a powerhouse of a PC a little better on the ol conscience!
 
~Shard~ said:
Interesting, but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter - it's an unavoidable cost to use the devices you enjoy. :)
Click to expand...

i agree, but also disagree with the sense of leaving these things on 24/7. I know there is a ton of debate regarding turning off the macs and if you are doing long term damage etc...

but in the end, i always turn my machines off.

i might look for one of those devices. it would be scary to know what my basement office generates :eek:
 
I can comfortably afford my current electricity bill so there isn't really a problem as far as cost is concerned. I don't think that leaving the lights on or putting my iMac in standby will bankrupt me, but I don't lose anything by turning it off so I try to be kind to the environment. Every night before I go to bed I just turn everything off at the mains. Doesn't go back on until I get back from work the next day (usually around 18 hours later).
 
I run a power hungry Quad Core Gaming System and the shock for me is it's more expensive that my boiler to run per year if left switched on.
 
liketom said:
I wondered into Maplins the other day and picked up some Energy Efficient Lightbulb's and a Electric Power Monitor
like this one -
n42fr_2.jpg


thinking this would give me an idea on how much electric i'm wasting and where.

well 48 hours later i'm still turning light's off and trying my best to get the Watts down to 0 :D

some internet research has brought up some very shocking facts on the running cost's of thing's in my home.

for example:

Panasonic TH42PX8 - In-Use: 255W- Standby: 0.7W cost per year to run =£82.30 & £0.68 on standby
Mac Pro 2.66Ghz £76.64 and £7.97 a year in standby
another one :

my Macbook Pro cost me £26 per year to run and £1.53 in standby
my PS3 is a real hog! Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) - 60gb cost's £40.88 a year to run ! compare to my PSone(£1.08 a year to run) it a real hungry hog!

Take a look and see where your hard earned money is going !



and as a big shocker the Dell Latitude d420 12" Craptop only cost's £8.14 a year to run ?

now in my house i have gizmo's everywhere 2 x big screen tv's ps3/wii mac's all over the place - APE x 2 ,TC, 5 x External HDD's ,Setop boxes with HDD and DVD recorder, Amp, too many halogen light fittings , powershower , microwave , frezer, fridge, dishwasher ...... and so on

i'm going to try and slim back on devices - i've started with the light's replacing them with the new energy one's so instead of 100w/60w bulbs i've got the new 10-12w green one's


Any thought's?
Click to expand...
Two telly's , why d'you want two ? you can only watch one at once .

I'm a bit of an 'eco warrior ' , now , for want of a better term and I applaud you taking some action but am surprised to find someone buying an electronic meter to asses the level of electric used in order to combat the use of electric :confused: ....every electric device uses electric ...sell all the devices that you don't use at least 5 times a day and just watch the fuel bills drop !.


Switching your bulbs might be a start , sort of , but when you really look at it it will take a while for them to reduce your bills and did you know that they are not so environmentally friendly as the manufacturers would have us all believe , as they apparently cost substantially more both in money & environmental terms to produce .

Hope I don't come across too harsh as I really do applaud anyone stepping in the right direction !.

I my self had a house full of electronic devices up till about 6 years ago when I realized I don't actually need any of those devices , except the Mac of course :rolleyes: and a modest(ish) sound system .

I ditched my TV's/video's ( it's all crap anyway) DVD player ( watch on Mac), alarm clocks ( got a wind up), dishwasher (I got my hands ), games consoles( that was tuff but I took up fishing and walking and feel better for it ) , extra monitors ( only require one), all none 'fitted' lamps ( don't need em), electric oven ( swapped for gas) , kettle ( got a boil on the hob type) , microwave (only used it to defrost ) , food mixers ( again , I got hands ) big freezer( for a more modest one) big fridge ( again for a smaller one )the list go's on and on .


Just so you know I am married and have two young children who I'm glad I'm not bringing up watching telly & playing computer games btw , I do use the enviro type bulbs but only as I got them free from a service provider for switching over to them ...

It's blimmin hard work getting used to not having all that stuff around but I can tell you after a while it gets a lot easier and now I wouldn't have it any other way ....when it go's dark outside , it does in my house too 'cept for the glow of the screen on the Mac and maybe the flicker of a candle or two occasionally .

What kicked it all of for me was when we had a power outage for a week and a half and it was great , really , felt like a breath of fresh air rolled through the whole neighbourhood , folk out talking to each other in the street instead of watching the tellybox ...candles at tea time etc ....I thought I'm having me some of that , and did.
( there was one plonker though who went out and hired a generator so he could watch telly :rolleyes: )
Oh & and I can assure you that we as a family are not like a bunch of smells either , and it wasn't about cost of fuel or anything like that, more about actually having a life I suppose.

Sorry guys , I'm ranting a bit here .

>rant over <

I wish you the best in your efforts sir

Marbles



PS. I will refrain from posting my fuel bill costs :p
 
some people like the one above go a little over board. I run nice compact florance bulbs in all my majors lights (bedroom, computer room and living room.

The bathroom lights and a few hall way lights are the old style because well I never got around to replacing them and I use the florance bulbs not because they use less engery but because I can put in brighter ones. I like light a lot of light. Best thing is I have 100w equilants in a 40 or 60 watt socket. So as you can tell I like it to be bright.

My desktop pulls about 150-160w when the monitor is running. about 120 with out it (hand UPC) so I figure it costing me about 30 cents day to run it 24/7. Not the best thing but bad habits die hard and it is the first thing I check in the morning and when I get home.

The best I really do is I run my A/C at 80+ degrees most of the time and 85 during the day. During the winter my heater is set 65 or lower and I use a space heater at night.

What people find surpising is the amount of vampires they have. While the stuff is in use it is not so bad. but it while in stand by people get more shocked about. It is easy to cut 20-30 cent a day in vampire power.
 
Elven said:
I run a power hungry Quad Core Gaming System and the shock for me is it's more expensive that my boiler to run per year if left switched on.
Click to expand...

I'm planning a workstation quad core system, along with an ATi 4870x2. Looks like I'll be using it in the dark :D
 
Two days ago, I paid my electric bill which was $100. It's the end of summer here in Colorado and normally for my house, my bill this time of year would be about $45. I blame the high bill I just paid above on my Mac Pro. Since I bought it on June 2, it's spent 99% of it's life crunching numbers for seti@home and 1% syncing my iPhone and storing music and video content for iTunes. I had it on the timer so it would turn on at 4AM when get home from work and turn off at 5PM when I leave for work. It stayed on constantly Saturday - Mondays, my days off doing the Seti thing.

No more. I'll just turn it on a few times a week now when I want to surf the net or sync one of my phones but that's about it. Today was the first time this September that my heat turned on, it's been a cool September so far and anyone who lives in Colorado knows that once September gets here, it can snow anytime. With heating the house comes the higher bills not to mention the electric of course.

My Mac Pro is an energy hog plain and simple. I've had my iMac running allot more than the Mac Pro and I bought it months before the Mac Pro and the iMac doesn't use nearly as much energy as the Pro does. Even running the iMac and two laptops at the same time never gave me the high bills as I've seen with the Pro.

Before I sold my MacBook pro last week, even it didn't use much power at all. I had it on most of the time that I would be using my iMac. While watching movies or TV shows on the iMac, I would be surfing on the MBP or the MacBook.

I think I'll start calling my Mac Pro the Mac Pro Hog. :( Get a picture of a hog and glue it on my Mac Pros side.
 
liketom said:
and as a big shocker the Dell Latitude d420 12" Craptop only cost's £8.14 a year to run ?
Click to expand...

Why's it a shock? It is using a low voltage processor with an energy efficient screen. The Macbook Air TotalCompleteUtterS***top can't be far behind.

I must say I don't, and can't really worry about it. I have comms gear which sucks up power well beyond an entire household on 24/7, and that's before we get to everything else.
 
Well, I don't pay an electric bill like most people, I live in a truck. a normal day of driving is plenty to charge up the truck batteries back up to full. Being that I get paid when the truck is moving that makes running my MBP (my only toy requiring power) basically free.

If I'm not moving for more than 12 hours or so I'll turn off the inverter and run the laptop off its own battery. If I'm sitting for more than 15 hours or so I'll run the truck for a couple hours to charge the batteries, about 2-4 gallons of diesel worth of idling a day, or about $25/day at the worst. I rarely sit for more that 10-15 hours.

When I am "home" I am not required to contribute to the electric bill, abother freebee. :D
 
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