[Satsumomo]

Hello there!

My electric bill skyrocketed this month (From paying $20 it went up to $65). Looking for culprits it seems that my meter is crazy when my computer is on. Using this calculator my meter does 1 whole revolution every 56 seconds.

I don't leave my computer on all day, I use it quite a lot, maybe 12 hours a day, but it's mostly web surfing or listening to music, nothing demanding. I also have my computer set to the "Power save" mode.

Unfortunately the meter doesn't seem to have it's Kh written on it, so I'm supposing it's 7.2 as the site suggests.

Now, my computer specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked to 3.6Ghz (From 3.0, 20W increase)
Nvidia GeForce GTX460 768mb (Supposed to consume 19w on idle)
2GB x 2 of DDR2 RAM
Biostar I45 ATX motherboard
2 x 7200rpm SATA-II hard drives
1 x DVD burner drive
1 x PCI card (Soundblaster)
4 x 120mm fans
1 x 80mm fan
Corsair TX750 PSU
1 x 22" LCD monitor

According to PSU calculator, my computer should consume 366W on 90% load.

So things are getting weird here.

This what my CPU and GPU look like when idle:




(Not OC'd here, when OC'd temp doesn't really change, and it correctly goes to x6 multiplier.)

CPU sits at around 35ºC and GPU at around 32ºC

No processes at 100%

What should I be considering? I did move my computer from place, could the wall outlet be bad? Has the PSU gone bad? Please help, just writing this is costing me! :P

[Ba!nesy]

Well, i'm no expert so might wanna get a second opinion, but If you trust my judgement, try plugging it into a diff wall outlet socket, see if that works, if nmot wall socket should be good,
Do you have another similar PSU to try with (could be a bitch but hey if you have to do it.) Or use a multimeter (again don't know to go about it, or even if it will tell you anything)
Are your hard drives spinning constantly, trying to write/read information?
Are the fans able to be turned off/unplugged for a while and see what that does?
Hopefully these may offer direct or non-direct troubleshooting theories. Apart from that I can't help you mate, sorry.

P.S... really $65 a month for electricity!?!?! If we were paying that we'd be laughing... we pay about $230 a month for electricity in Australia, Victoria... Unless your living by yourself, in an apartment???

[Omsion]

Compare your actual usage with last month's bill. How much of it is actually due to extra usage rather than price changes?

[Ba!nesy]

that to... did not even think of rate rises.
But then again is 465W on idle normal for his specs? considering he has 2 HDDs, 4 extra fans a dedicated sound card (some of us don't have one) etc...

[Satsumomo]

Whoa, I found the damn kh factor, it's 3.003, so my computer is consuming around 180W idle. That should be normal then, right?

Oh man, why did my bill shoot up like this? Last bimester (Sorry, it's not monthly, it's every 2 months) I had a total consumption of 270KWH, this bimester it shot up to 649KWH.
Ba!nesy, it's even cheaper in Vancouver, it's crazy. I'm located in Mexico, and we get 125KWH subsidised by the government as well, so that's why it's kinda cheap. But once you go past those 125KWH, it can really go high. How much KWH are you using in your place? I live with a buddy in a small 2 bedroom apt.

[thideras]

I have an extremely hard time believing that system pulls 463 watts at idle. Either your rate is different on the meter or you have something else pulling power that you are not factoring in. If you can, get a Kill-A-Watt, they are extremely useful.

EDIT: You posted the same time I did:

Originally Posted by Satsumomo

Whoa, I found the damn kh factor, it's 3.003, so my computer is consuming around 180W idle. That should be normal then, right?

Oh man, why did my bill shoot up like this? Last bimester (Sorry, it's not monthly, it's every 2 months) I had a total consumption of 270KWH, this bimester it shot up to 649KWH. How much KWH are you using in your place? I live with a buddy in a small 2 bedroom apt.

Ba!nesy, it's even cheaper in Vancouver, it's crazy. I'm located in Mexico, and we get 125KWH subsidised by the government as well, so that's why it's kinda cheap. But once you go past those 125KWH, it can really go high.

That sounds much better. What else runs? AC or other appliances? You need to narrow down what is taking power.

[TiZakit]

Possible that the low price was an old estimate?

Something like this dumb Cleveland issue I remember reading about? Some people suddenly got water bills in the thousands!
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009...omers_say.html

[Satsumomo]

The only other culprit I can think of is my fridge, it's kinda old. I gotta check that one out.

Also, my roomate has left the electric iron on for over 8 hours (1500W) but irons don't constantly consume power and according to this site, 35 minutes ironing consumed 0.13KWH... so that's 0.22KWH per hour, so 0.22KWH x 16 (He's done this maybe twice) that's only 1.76KWH

Edit: I'm definitely getting in touch with the power company tomorrow, see if there's a mistake around here.

Edit 2: Calculating KWH... is this correct?

Let's say my computer is on 8 hours for 60 days, at 90% load 330W:

8 * 60 * 330 / 1000 = 158.4 KWH for the 60 days?