# Download all night and still keep you power bills down



## shaunak (Oct 7, 2006)

Reliance energy will soon be increasing your bill amount by an atrocious 40*%* for the next 6 months. 
And in other news most P2P networks to go down in a couple of months.
Talk of mixed emotions; 
Downloading all night will surely give you a shock at the end of the month when you get the power bill, but if you don't, it will be one golden source of Warez lost for ever. This tutorial will tell you how to lower your PC power consumption.

STEP #1: Sacrifice.
You can have it all. To save power you must sacrifice on performance. To download stuff and surf the Internet you only need the following components to be attached to your mobo:
>the processor
>basic amount of RAM
>network cards
>Hard disk drive.
That's all. [keyboard n monitor granted of course]

Step#2 Removal.
Remove all the components not listed above.
Out Goes your:
>Graphic card [remove this first]
much of the power consumed by your PC is used up by this. On board will have to do.
>Giga bytes of RAM
More ram=more power to run. 256 will do for a few days.
>second hard drive 
You require power to spin about at an excess of 10000 Rpm. A lot of it at that. So remove it if you don't need it
>extra coolers
now that your PC is slower you wont be needing these.
>TV tuner, blue tooth  and other misc cards. if its attached its using power.

Step 3 # Slugisville
Yes. your PC will run slow, real slow still the power [ie money saved should compensate] I mean 40% increase for 6 months is not a joke.
Hopefully you are familiar with the hardware in your box enough to do changes dynamically. ie add components whenever you need them.

Lastly
If you were contemplating buying a
>LCD
>Intel Core 2 duo
Now is the time to do it. These definately save power.

Hope this helps keep your power bills down.


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## sariq (Oct 7, 2006)

only switching off monitor can do a lot of saving. parts like TV tuner, Bluetooth, keyboard, mouse doesnt consume much power. most power hungry parts are(typical values) 
Monitor ------60W - switch it off
SMPS PSU ---40W - you cant remove it
Processor ----20W - you cant remove it
Motherboard -10W - you cant remove it
Graphics card-20W-OK, remove it but it is not easy
RAM ---------20w not much power hungry, removal not recommended
TV Tuner -----5W- not much power hungry, removal not recommended
BT dongle ----1W- not much power hungry

better to buy Laptop for downloads  it consumes <20% of the power consumed by desktop PC with CRT

or atleast purchase LCD monitor it consumes half power than CRT of same size check here


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## shaunak (Oct 7, 2006)

graphic power consumption depens on your card. High end cards consume as much power as your cpu. And yes SMPS dont consume power, it supplies it.
And well you might as well pay your bills than buy a laptop

Dont say whats a watt, say what a what.


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## sariq (Oct 7, 2006)

shaunak said:
			
		

> And yes SMPS dont consume power, it supplies it.



i know that, but it has poor efficiency 60-70%. so for 100W output it will take ~150W input. which means 50W consumption.


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## Rollercoaster (Oct 8, 2006)

the best ways is to do what i do... use a old p3 with onboard vga as a download center 
u dont even need the monitor. just connect it when administuring. the power consumption goes to 10% as compared to my PC(amd a64 on a8n sli, 3 hdd, 2 optical, 6600GT, 550w PSU, 5.1 Amplifier, 17" 200w ulrabright mammoth power consumer acer monitor, 6+USb devices, 2 pci cards, 6 internal fans)

or use a laptop.


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## hemant_mathur (Oct 8, 2006)

I use a p1 with some video card, 8 gb hard disk and monitor turned off ... wonder how much power it consumes ??


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## hard_rock (Oct 12, 2006)

I think removing Computer components like Graphics Card,RAM daily night isnt good as eventually may lead to loose contacts... Turning OFF monitor is enough I think.


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## kumarmohit (Oct 12, 2006)

for all nite dloads even I turn off monitor


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## MysticHalo (Oct 12, 2006)

IMO, if u have enuff money to get unlimited dwload internet, power bills wont bother u much


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## Wannabe_a_techie (Oct 13, 2006)

sariq said:
			
		

> only switching off monitor can do a lot of saving. parts like TV tuner, Bluetooth, keyboard, mouse doesnt consume much power. most power hungry parts are(typical values)
> Monitor ------60W - switch it off
> QUOTE]
> 
> ...


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## return_of_vengeance (Oct 13, 2006)

i just switch off the monitor. & i dont find my bills run up with night downloading... juz switch off monitor & SPEAKERS...


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## champ_rock (Oct 13, 2006)

please tell me which is true:
1. old computers have less power and therefore consume less electricity
2. old computers are rusted junks which lead to more wastage of electricity than todays modern computers

one of them is definately a myth..


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## sariq (Oct 13, 2006)

@champ_rock: old computers consume lesser power, but they work very slow

@Wannabe_a_techie: for monitor these are approx values 15"-60W, 17"- 70W, 19"- 100W, 21"- 115W


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## gxsaurav (Oct 13, 2006)

Oh comon...all this is not even required

I use my Computer overnight, while rendering as well as downloading..at the same time. Sometimes, i even chat, while downloading is going on & CPU is rendering.

However, when downloading over night...I simply close the monitor, thats it...nothing else...u cannot shut off the vital parts

1) CPU , motherboard, RAM , cannot be closed

2) if U have nvidia Geforce 6 or ATI X8xx or in that series graphics card or later in PCIe slot, u can simply lower the 2D Clock speed with coolbits, since it's PCIe, it will reduce clock as well as overall power consumption. A 2D clock speed of 200 MHz is enough to run Windows XP SP2/Linux (XGL) at max quality, cos the graphics card has it's own RAM which also consumes less power when not needed

2) TV tuners, modems, USB flash drives, usually eat 5W max, they are already made to eat less power. TV tuner can eat upto 25W, however only when needed, if it's idle in the cabinet, it eat a max of 5w only...to stay idle

3) 2nd harddisk, well...if it's not spinning, even thats eating less power, however if u like, take the power cords off, thats it. Same goes with optical drive, however, this won't reduce a lot of power


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## hackers2005.3721 (Oct 19, 2006)

i  jst  close  the moniter  and then  to  to   power opyion  in  control panel  and  clik on  miiumum  power constumtion  dude  laptop  also  use the  same trick


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## Raaza (Oct 28, 2006)

I've these configurations.

Celeron 1.1 ghz
256 sd ram
60 gb hdd
300 wat smps
810e mb
onboard graphics

that's all


What will be the total power consumption if my pc just download files for 24 hours. monitor will be in power off.


Is there any software to calculate the power consumption?
and from where can i get the informations on wattage of the pc components?


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## thewisecrab (Oct 29, 2006)

I'd go with sariq and shaunak.... use only the parts of the comp u need andf dismantle the rest 4 later.......


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## samrulez (Oct 29, 2006)

> Monitor ------60W - switch it off
> SMPS PSU ---40W - you cant remove it
> Processor ----20W - you cant remove it
> Motherboard -10W - you cant remove it
> ...



Hmmm.......this is approx....our PCs take much more that what's here.....*specially at full load..*...and with high end gfx cards and oc'ed processors...may be with 130nm fabrications or 90nm,,fabs...

But the processor takes much more power at load....and (correct me if i'm wrong) the SMPS take more than 300 + watts...          .... 

And totally a avg. pc consumes about 300(main sys)+55(CRT monitor)+10(misc.)....but this is at full load...

Switching off a CRT monitor  while downloading huge thing is a gr8 way of saving electricity and saving money too!


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## Rollercoaster (Oct 29, 2006)

a pIII +mobo + ram + gfxcard + hdd + Lan card is not more then 60w


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## gary4gar (Oct 29, 2006)

shaunak said:
			
		

> Reliance energy will soon be increasing your bill amount by an atrocious 40*%* for the next 6 months.
> And in other news most P2P networks to go down in a couple of months.
> Talk of mixed emotions;
> Downloading all night will surely give you a shock at the end of the month when you get the power bill, but if you don't, it will be one golden source of Warez lost for ever. This tutorial will tell you how to lower your PC power consumption.
> ...


me does not have a single part to power off expect monitor


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## satyamy (Oct 29, 2006)

I use PIII, 128MB RAM, 40GB HDD, 15" Monitor n even shut off the monitor
download speed is same but electric consumption is less............. hahaha

u can also buy any old PC for doing these types of stufs
also it'll cost just 5-6k


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## delivi (Nov 5, 2006)

Why do we need to download continuously when we have the Pause and Resume feature in our download managers.


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## goobimama (Nov 5, 2006)

Am I not right in thinking that a graphics card will use much less power when not in use? I mean, for pure downloading at night, there would be minimal graphic rendering, so the GPU should power down is it not?

Also, if you have a second HDD, just use the Powersave option to "turn off HDD after ..... minutes". Second HDD will turn off once say 10 minutes of non usage are up. 

I'm definitely not removing any RAM from my PC, the only thing which actually makes a difference. 

What's the point of downloading HD content when you can't play it due to 255MB of RAM and no graphics processor?


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## ctrl_alt_del (Nov 6, 2006)

delivi said:
			
		

> Why do we need to download continuously when we have the Pause and Resume feature in our download managers.



...because many ISP like DataOne provide an uncapped connection at night, say like 0200 hrs to 0800 hrs.


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## SoFtEcH (Nov 6, 2006)

good one mate's


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## agill (Nov 9, 2006)

I download stuff 24/7 so am thinking of ways to cut power consumption...

1) would downloading still be possible if pc is set to hibernation or standby mode?

2) how much less power does a laptop use compared to desktop?

3) any other easy method to cut my bills appreciated...!


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## Rollercoaster (Nov 9, 2006)

1)NO

2)way low. see adapter for amp rating.(<50w)

3)Turn of monitor,speaker. thatz it.


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## sridhark (Nov 9, 2006)

I would suggest...

Only download, what you will definitely use. 

about 40%..50%.. 60% .. or even 70%  saved for you?  lol.  oh  i guess  'time' is definitely saved, which is more important.  DO NOT GET ADDICTED TO DOWNLOADING WAREZ.. guyz... lol.. i have gone thru it all... so i tell u.


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## hahahari (Jun 2, 2008)

Just use a laptop. If not then turnoff the monitor.Removing all these vital PC ORGANS can cause joint problems leading to loss of the component or worse damage to the port, which might need to be repaird by computerwala, which is definitely not recommended.


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## ico (Jun 2, 2008)

hahahari said:


> Just use a laptop. If not then turnoff the monitor.Removing all these vital PC ORGANS can cause joint problems leading to loss of the component or worse damage to the port, which might need to be repaird by computerwala, which is definitely not recommended.


And yes, spend less time in bumping old threads........ This will also save a lot of power.......

BTW this thread is useful.


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## New (Jun 3, 2008)

Look here for great tut on How to save power
*ganeshpbhat.blogspot.com/2008/06/must-readhow-to-save-power.html
*ganeshpbhat.blogspot.com/2008/06/must-readhow-to-save-power.html


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