HTPC + Kill-A-Watt: Power usage thread (With Pics) - Page 5

How does Mfusick get his power for $0.05/KWh but the rest of you in the NE are paying three times that?

How long will it take you to recover the cost of that PV Array? One thing to consider is maintenence and cleaning of the panels is tantemount to getting the most energy out of them.

0.067 is our generation rate. It's higher for us than other MA utilities.

Ngrid and Nstar are cheaper than WMECO.

Our rates are lower because how our utilities buy their power has benefited from natural gas prices crashing earlier in year. We are fully deregulated since 1998.

I live only a couple miles from CT boarder and about a mile down road rates go up even though its same utility company ( northeast utilities ) because of how CT does it. CT has always been historically expensive for electricity.

They just changed how they do it and now they have about 15% cheaper rate starting jan 1st.

I used 15MWHr last year and this array will produce about 11MWHr at our latitude and my roof is at 155deg from due north and 20deg pitch, which is almost perfect. It will take about 5 years to pay back.
The west side of MA and CT are controlled by CONVEX located in Southington, CT. This whole area shares generation and distribution. Some portion is purchased from Hydro Quebec. The most interesting generation is the Candlewood Lake pump storage station on the Housatonic River.
http://www.cvx.com/
Edited by dksc318 - 12/16/12 at 2:56pm

I paid 0.085 last month. That's for everything; generating cost, fuel cost and the charges for the 2005 and 2008 hurricanes. My last power bill was $58, so you see why it doesn't bother me to leave the HTPC and server running 24/7.

You should be powered by Waterford nuclear generation station. My uncle worked on it just before he retired.

Yeah I'm in new construction with can lights all over the house. I put 75W equivalent compact florescents in all the cans and its practically like daylight, they also put out a nice warm color light. I have no complaints.

Can lights are directional. Which is perfect for LED lights. I have LED bulbs in all my can lights. Chandeliers are much tougher to convert to LED.

Yeah, the downside is the 'kill-a-watt' hides the other outlet...

But you don't use it 100% of the time... in most places. You just check then remove right ???

Yep, I just check & remove it.

You can leave it in and it will act as a Watt Hour meter. Let's you know how much you're spending on power.

Interesting version of the Kill-A-Watt at http://1saleaday.com/wireless/ (today only). If I didn't already have one I'd go $25 for this one.

Joulemeter from Microsoft has some great power usage info if you want to try it out.

Is this a program or is it a physical tool like killawatt ?

Software

How's it work?

Is it accurate ?

Link ?

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/mobile/download.aspx?p=fe9e10c5-5c5b-450c-a674-daf55565f794

First result in google....

Perfect opportunity to be a smart ass.... like this:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=microsoft+Joulemeter+

That was classic! Thanks man. Wasn't trying to sound sarcastic but that link made my day.

Will be using that a lot!

I have it installed on my laptop but have only used it once. Mikinho referred me to it since he knows some of those guys. As far as I remember it's a pretty comprehensive program.

Lol.

Couldn't help myself (even if it was making fun if me).

New HTPC Build

Internal Hardware:
i3-3225 (using integrated HD4000 gpu & stock intel cpu cooler)
ASRock z77 pro4-m
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 1600 DDR3
Samsung 840 series 120gb SSD (OS & Applications)
Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm 1TB HDD (Recorded shows)

Case, Accessories & Supply:
Corsair Carbide 400R mid-tower case (stock fans)
Antec EA-380D 80plus Bronze
Logitech K400 wireless keyboard/mouse combo w/ unifying usb adapter

Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate x86/32 bit w/ language pack installed
Windows Media Center (for DVR function)
Mozilla Firefox 32-bit (for HBO, Amazon Prime Video access)
Norton Ghost v15
Symantec AntiVirus v11

Tuner:
HDHomerun Prime w/ CableCard 3 tuners

Total Cost for all above(less software) w/ tax, shipping & rebates applied: $662

Power Usage by Kill-a-watt measurements (Wattage quoted at max of observed range):
Power off, PSU in standby 0.9W
Idle, system on w/ nothing playing/recording 30.4W (Not often in this state as I have the system go to sleep in 5 minutes of idle)
Sleep (RAM & USB powered, set for 5 min of no-playback or record) 7.2W (Will wakeup automatically to record, and on input from wireless keyboard/mouse, wakeup time <7sec)
Recording 3 HD TV shows and simultaneous playback of separate HD show 48W (have seen this closer to 40W for sustained periods)
HBO Go playback via Firefox 44W (have seen this closer to 35W for sustained periods)

Power Usage Notes:
1. HDHomeRun Prime, was NOT included in the wattage results. However, I measured it at 4.5W with 1 tuner on and 5.8W while 3 tuners running.
2. Please ignore the DVD writer in the picture. I used it to install software, but took it out later (notice the dangling red SATA cable where it used to be). It's not part of my current build. However, I did measure my system at anywhere between 35-46W when playing a DVD in it. Hard access to it really jacked up the power usage to mid-50W. I took it out because I hardly play any DVDs. If I add a bluray in the future, I will update my measurements.

Some impressions about this system:
I'm VERY happy with the performance overall and the power usage.
1. SSD is a gigantic perf boost, and I think 120GB is the right size to go with even though I'm only using 30GB for OS/Apps. The excess capacity helps tremendously in making the drive last longer due to the usage leveling feature of SSDs. Since there is more space to work with, there are less overall writes per block, thus longer life.
2. Seeing as max efficiency of power supplies occurs at 50% load, even my 380W is oversized for this system. Are there no highly rated ATX power supplies in the sub 200W range?
3. I am disappointed that I was reduced to installing the 32bit version of Windows 7. I did this at the recommendation of a Slingbox product manager. The slingbox webplayer is an essential feature of my system capability. This renders my 8GB of RAM rather useless. However, since I'm using the integrated gpu (Intel HD4000), I have to share system/graphic memory. I wonder if they must both compete for the same 3GB max that is available under 32bit, or if the graphics part and system can use separate areas of memory.
4. This case is overkill, but I had my reasons for it. First, I wanted the flexibility of extra slots to handle optical drives from different region codes (not a common problem in the U.S. but one that I have.) Second this case has great cable management. It may be hard to tell from my pictures, but I was able to separate signal and power cables fairly well. Lastly, the case had very impressive stock cooling (2 intake fans in front, and 1 outtake fan in back). I was able to turn down fan speeds to their lowest setting in the BIOS without any thermal impact.





Edited by tcaradonna - 3/3/13 at 3:49pm

Could you sum up the contents of the attachments? I'd prefer not having to download them. Better still, edit your post so they appear as photos and not attachments. TIA.

PS: to do that use the 'Little House Picture' icon in the editor and upload them as 'images'. It's a Huddler thing...

@olyteddy: Thanks for the tip. I added them to my original post.
Edited by tcaradonna - 3/2/13 at 8:18pm

Nice. I too have a 3225/Z77 build. Mines an mATX with similar power draw. I'm going to swap the storage drive up to 2 TB though.


PS: Have you considered Region Free Firmware? Look here: http://rpc1.org/
Edited by olyteddy - 3/2/13 at 10:30pm

When you go for a new drive, will you keep the old drive in, or replace? 1TB still holds alot of shows. If you're replacing, is it a space problem or a power problem?

As for the rpc1.org site, I think I've seen that site before but didn't quite know what it was. Is the idea that any firmware posted there is region free? Thanks!

Pictures are pretty easy to upload and embed so they display on AVS. I do it all the time.

If the pic it too big reduce its size with MS paint.

I have yet to still buy one of these. I guess I should. I've had a $60 giftcard to tiger direct since black friday when they charged me $120 instead of $59 for a Vertex 3 120GB. They refunded me on a giftcard and I have not used it. It's odd I can't find anything I want on that sight. lol.
If I see a killawatt I might grab one.


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6696055&CatId=7196


this one is pretty cool:

Shuffling drives. I got a 3TB SeaGate that will plug into my GoFlex Home base (NAS, I keep movies and music there) and the 2TB from that will go into the mATX box (Living room) and the 1TB from there goes into another 3225 build (in this case/mobo for $60! http://www.avsforum.com/t/1442007/foxconn-itx-bare-bones-60/0_40 )

The RPC1 forum has modded firmwares that deal with region and rip-lock. http://club.myce.com/f61/ is also a real good resource for about anything optical.