electric consumption of a computer

[ramya narayanan]

Hi all,
Good evening.
I'm from bangalore,India.
I'm sharing a room space with my roomate.
He does possess a computer which he uses frequently.
Other electric resuources we have are
1)Geaser
2) TV
3) Fan
The total number of units consumed before he came(Before he started using computer) is less than 70 units.
But now the bill comes for more than 80 units.
But my roomate says that electric consumption of a computer will be same as that of TV or Fan.
Is it so ?
Please reply.
Regards.

[Maneesh Godbole]

If I remember correctly, 1 "unit" is 1000KVA/hour or 1000KW/hour.
In short, if you consume 1000 watts for one hour, you will be charged for one "unit"

Electrical devices usually have the consumption defined on them. Check out the monitor and the CPU and figure out the maths.

PS. Whats wrong with splitting 50-50?

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

I"m still trying to figure out what a "Geaser" is!

[Joe Ess]

There are plenty of resources to figure out how much electricity appliances use. If you want exact numbers, there's plug-in monitors available.
In the case of TV's and computers, there are lots of variables (size of tv vs. size of monitor, how many peripherals the computer has, how long each is used in a day, etc.) but in general, a computer will draw more electricity than a tv.

[Saurabh Pillai]

Originally posted by Ernest Friedman-Hill:
I"m still trying to figure out what a "Geaser" is!

An appliance to get hot water generally for bathing.

[Arvind Mahendra]

Originally posted by Ernest Friedman-Hill:
I"m still trying to figure out what a "Geaser" is!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geyser

Don't tell me you don't have one of these erupting inside your home
[ October 15, 2008: Message edited by: Arvind Mahendra ]

[Sergio Tridente]

Originally posted by Saurabh Pillai:

An appliance to get hot water generally for bathing.

I would put the blame more on that Geiser thingy than on the computer. Two people taking showers will consume more than only one.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Indeed. An electric hot water heater has got to be a wicked kilowatt sponge. Assuming the new guy showers at least a couple times a week, that's going to use way more electricity than a home PC.

[Paul Clapham]

Doesn't this thread belong in the Performance forum? Then people could chip in with the usual suspects:

"Don't micro-optimize"

"Measure performance and work on the badly-performing parts"

and so on.

[Pat Farrell]

In most US homes, the biggest energy user is the refridgerator. It runs all the time, all year. This is true even in hot areas with lots of A/C usage, say Atlanta or Dallas.

Compared to a fridge, a computer is nothing.