Interested in a bit of geek time and wanted to see what electricity my equipment pulls from the wall. Any recommendations on one of these pass through plugs to monitor the WATTS?
Can't recomment this one highly enough - it's only £12.99 at Maplin and it's an amazing piece of kit. Afaik it's one of the more accurate ones; many people complain that it has to be plugged in when you take a reading from it (and there is no light to assist you in doing this) but it has never been a problem for me. Just get a torch and you're sorted. Took this a minute ago - my PC is currently drawing 173 watts (through a 775W PSU...totally shocking lol)
Looking at exactly the same meter as LennyRhys, it is reliably telling me that... ...My rig PC + Dell U2311H, 32" TV, MacMini and Microserver on standby, all pulling 242 watts. Without the TV it drops to 104 watts.
Sounds like your unit is somewhat borked lol. I've been using this one for a long time now and the readings are extremely consistent (eg a 3KW kettle draws 2995W, my NEC monitors draw about 70W each, and my PC draws about 375W under load, etc.). There's nothing to hide that this meter is cheap and cheerful, but if you get a good unit then happy days. Matticus... curious as to why you kept yours? Lol.
Reserved and bought, thanks LennyRhys! Just tested my signature rig and it tops out at around 450 watts with the CPU/GPU overclocked and under extreme stress. When the system idles it ranges from 160 to 135 watts. Quite interesting to observe the readings although the Maplins guy did recommend not to use it on a 24/7 basis! Only wanted it for spot checks anyway. Still plenty of juice in the AX850 yet!
Heh awesome... before you know it you'll be going round the house thinking "hmmm... what else can I plug in?" Lol When I had my GTX470 I ran Prime95 and Furmark together and the draw nearly reached 600W... what a beast of a graphics card that was.
You will probably find it quite interesting that my 2600k draws exactly 150W whilst chucking out folding units at 4.5Ghz Stupidly low power CPU that.
I think wires have been crossed. I was saying it was being reliable, the way I listed it was completely retarded. My PC + Monitor and my TV were on when it was reading 242. Only my PC and Monitor were on when it read 104. But during both of those readings my MacMini and HP proliant Microserver were on standby (off but still plugged in). I thought it was worth noting what was plugged in but not on because they seem to draw a couple of watts between them. Edit: Blogins, why did the Maplin guy say not to use it 24/7, I have had mine plugged in for a little over a week as I wanted to see a realistic kwh usage per day.
For the last 3 weeks or so my PC has been plugged into the watt meter... I run it for several hours every day and have seen no ill effects. I think perhaps the Maplin sales assistant felt obliged to give the impression he knew what he was talking about, lol, and gave a void but learned-sounding piece of cautionary advice. @ Matticus, that's much clearer now. @Tarka - INSANE!!!
