What is Energy Consumption Costs of a Power PC – Always On / Sleep Mode?

gourav said:
Sleep mode doesn't use much power as pretty much everything except the RAM is powered down. I'd say it would be around 7-10 watts.

It is not possible to calculate the power consumption using any online calculator as your actual usage will depend on the usage pattern of the PC. Regular day to day tasks don't stress the PC much. But if you're doing intensive tasks like gaming, machine learning, simulation, etc. power consumption will shoot up. If you have a UPS, that will also have its own idle power consumption.

The easiest way to check would be to get a smart plug with energy monitoring. I recently got a Wipro plug for ~₹850. Seems fairly accurate when comparing the power consumption to what OHM shows on PC.
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Wouldn't recommend the Wipro Smart plug for tracking. It is ridiculously inaacurate made obvious when comparing with USB testers for mobile devices. Even for my laptop, it reports input wattage in excess of what even the charger is capable of. The silver lining is that it is cheap and will provide an exaggerated figure while actual consumption would be quite less.
n1r0 said:
Check out Hybrid Sleep. I think it's on by default, but not 100% sure.
Basically the PC goes to sleep (keeps RAM powered, enabling instant resume) AND it saves the RAM content to disk (Hibernation) so that in case power cut you don't lose unsaved data, it will just resume from disk, just like when waking up from Hibernation.

But repeated Hibernation can thrash your SSD with unnecessary writes, so keep that in mind.
IMHO, set the PC to:
  • turn off displays after 2 mins
  • go to standby after 20 mins
  • hibernate after an hour (Hybrid sleep is off)

BUT this being India with random powercuts, keep your UPS backup time in mind - if it doesn't Hibernate before the UPS turns off, all your data is gone.
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It is interesting that you mention Hybrid Sleep. It is enabled on desktops by default but disabled on laptops. The reason for disabling on laptops is that people just shut the lid and travel with the laptop, which causes more hibernation writes and thus sleep is preferred with the understanding that the users are okay with the battery drain on a laptop.
 
t3chg33k said:
...sleep is preferred with the understanding that the users are okay with the battery drain on a laptop.
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I think it's because when AC is disconnected from laptop, it still can get power from the battery, and it knows how much power is left. So it can go to standby initially (saves writes + faster resume), until the battery is low enough to warrant Hibernation.

On desktop you don't know if a UPS is connected, or when it will run out. If AC/UPS power goes, you're more likely lose data, so you preventatively need to save it.
 
n1r0 said:
I think it's because when AC is disconnected from laptop, it still can get power from the battery, and it knows how much power is left. So it can go to standby initially (saves writes + faster resume), until the battery is low enough to warrant Hibernation.

On desktop you don't know if a UPS is connected, or when it will run out. If AC/UPS power goes, you're more likely lose data, so you preventatively need to save it.
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Yeah, that is why laptops also have an emergency hibernate function when battery is low. The idea is to use sleep until the battery gets too low. Again, depends how okay you are with repeated writes on your disk.

For desktops, Hybrid Sleep is a more practical option or otherwise if you want to manage it manually, then use Sleep for short periods and Hibernate for longer overnight periods.
 
?dOuBtFiRe? said:
I too need to know that. Can we use the Meco when the devise is connected to UPS, Inverter & Stabiliser.
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The idea of rms measurement means it can handle non sine waves but there have been mixed reviews on amazon about this subject. One older review said it did and some more recent ones said it could not.
 
terence_fdes said:
I live in Mumbai (where power rates are highest in India) & using Tata Power Electricity.
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I cross checked Electricity Charges by Mahavitran (Vasai-Virar) & Adani (Mumbai) and following is ...

Mahavitran Fixed Charges Rs.126/- pm
Adani Fixed Charges Rs.85/- pm (Adani Fixed charges also increased to Rs.125/- from 101 units onwards)

Mahavitran First 100 Units Rs.4.41/- per unit
Adani first 100 Units Rs.3.45/- per unit

Mahavitran 101-300 Units Rs.9.64/- per unit
Adani 101-300 Units Rs.5.55/- per unit

Mahavitran 301-500 Units Rs.13.61/- per unit
Adani 301-500 Units Rs.7.45/- per unit

Adani Power is cheaper than Mahavitran and Adani Electricity Charges keep reducing if your consumption unit is keep increasing.

mahavitran-oct-2023.jpg

**** Mahavitran Wheeling Charges Extra : Rs.1.17/- Per Unit to add in above Per Unit. Which they didn't mentioned here in this image.


adani-elec-charges-Oct-2023.jpg
 
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Emperor said:
I cross checked Electricity Charges by Mahavitran (Vasai-Virar) & Adani (Mumbai) and following is ...

Mahavitran Fixed Charges Rs.126/- pm
Adani Fixed Charges Rs.85/- pm (Adani Fixed charges also increased to Rs.125/- from 101 units onwards)

Mahavitran First 100 Units Rs.4.41/- per unit
Adani first 100 Units Rs.3.45/- per unit

Mahavitran 101-300 Units Rs.9.64/- per unit
Adani 101-300 Units Rs.5.55/- per unit

Mahavitran 301-500 Units Rs.13.61/- per unit
Adani 301-500 Units Rs.7.45/- per unit

Adani Power is cheaper than Mahavitran and Adani Electricity Charges keep reducing if your consumption unit is keep increasing.
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13.61 . Can’t believe it. How can Adani sell for half the price?
 
Emperor said:
I cross checked Electricity Charges by Mahavitran (Vasai-Virar) & Adani (Mumbai) and following is ...

Mahavitran Fixed Charges Rs.126/- pm
Adani Fixed Charges Rs.85/- pm (Adani Fixed charges also increased to Rs.125/- from 101 units onwards)

Mahavitran First 100 Units Rs.4.41/- per unit
Adani first 100 Units Rs.3.45/- per unit

Mahavitran 101-300 Units Rs.9.64/- per unit
Adani 101-300 Units Rs.5.55/- per unit

Mahavitran 301-500 Units Rs.13.61/- per unit
Adani 301-500 Units Rs.7.45/- per unit

Adani Power is cheaper than Mahavitran and Adani Electricity Charges keep reducing if your consumption unit is keep increasing.

View attachment 188853
**** Mahavitran Wheeling Charges Extra : Rs.1.17/- Per Unit to add in above Per Unit. Which they didn't mentioned here in this image.


View attachment 188854
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Absolutely bonkers. I have Adani and I also used to think it was on the expensive side.
 
n1r0 said:
Manual Hibernation is totally fine. I was speaking about Hybrid Sleep, which would write your entire RAM content to disk every time it went to stand by.

For a 1TB QLC drive with 200 TBW rating and 3 year warranty, you can write ~187GB per day for 3 years.

If you have 32GB RAM, and your PC went to Hybrid Sleep 4 times a day on average, that would be:
32 x 4=128GB of unnecessary writes per day.
Add regular usage and your drive might easily exceed its endurance, because of Write Amplification

Hence my suggestion of having separate sleep and hibernate timers.

----

But you make a valid point: SSD endurance has increased quite a bit since I last calculated my actual usage. I had seen 50-60GB of cache writes per day by web browser alone. A 1TB TLC w/ 600TBW should no longer require me to move my temp directory/browser cache to a HDD/RAM disk.

After 1.5 years, my SSD has had only 6.5TB of writes. I suppose I should start using what I paid for :sweatsmile:
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Hi @n1r0
Appreciate your insights - but all this will take me time for me to digest & fathom - separate sleep & hibernate timers!
I have 64GB of DDR5 RAM & WD Black SN850X 1TB M.2 NVMe Gen4

Now how do I actually figure out the wear & tear /endurance on my critical SSD Drive which has the OS & all softwares - with my always On / hibernate settings?
Is there a way to assess the status & remaining lifespan of my main SSD drive - after 10 months (and last 4 months - my system has been mostly ON/Wake on Sleep Mode?
 
terence_fdes said:
WHY I KEEP IT ALWAYS ON:
I have a problem of powering on my PC as the main Button of the Case/Cabinet does not work & I have by-passed it on the motherboard and then use a tiny start/reset button on the cabinet (with a ball point pen) – if required. This solution has worked well for the past 6 months or so.
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You do know that fixing that button will cost a max of 50 INR and solve your problem permanently!

Anyways, one more thing which no one has pointed out - your SMPS may not be efficient at lower loads. And that may also be contributing to your higher power figures

Finally, Tata is planning to increase rates, so beware
 
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