Software to check PC watts usage?

*Nosmartz* · 14-04-2006

Is there software out there to check how many watts your PC is pulling?I wanna see what mine does to see if I need a stronger power supply

*slayerking* · 14-04-2006

have you tried Motherboard Monitor

Dennis L · 14-04-2006

Not a program, but a way to estimate ... Power Supply Wattage Calculator
Please note above automatically adds power needs for MOBO, floppy, KeyBoard/mouse, CPU fan. Select your components from lists. It only allows for 2 optical drives to be calculated in summary. So you will have to do some mental math to add in additional power needs based on optical type/power.
As per your search for a installed program to do above ... would probably require a physical/hardware interface to provide information to running program. Best solution, get/borrow multi-meter which can test power draw.

geoff2k · 14-04-2006

You can get devices like the Kill-A-Watt that will measure this for you. They are pretty affordable.

*haveacigar* · 14-04-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by slayerking

have you tried Motherboard Monitor

I just downloaded theis program and it seems it can only tell you the volts :@ oh well, im keeping the program anyway coz it tells me my pc temperature

*Nosmartz* · 15-04-2006

thanx for the input guys...ima check em all out..

*slayerking* · 15-04-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by haveacigar

I just downloaded theis program and it seems it can only tell you the volts :@ oh well, im keeping the program anyway coz it tells me my pc temperature

That's because power from your PSU to your hardware is measured in volts (12v, 5v and 3.3v) not watts

My PSU is 520watts and has no problem keeping the voltages up to my hardware, even at full load.

geoff2k · 15-04-2006

A voltage is a point in time measurement of a difference in electrical potential between two points in a circuit. It is not a measure of power consumption. For the typical fluid/electricity comparison read this.

While it is important to know that your devices are getting accurate voltages, and utilities like motherboard monitor can help you detect voltage drooping due to overloaded PSUs, they cannot help you calculate the consumption of the devices in your system.

*slayerking* · 15-04-2006

Didn't say it was a method of consumption, I know exactly how electricity works. It is a more accurate way of measuring if your psu is keeping up the power or not. Wattage = voltage * Amps. Most of the systems power comes from the 12V rail which should have a certain amount of amps.

Quote:

Source from wiki
Q: Hang on, isn't a PSU's wattage all that matters?
A: This was partially true for older computers, but recently theres been a big change, suddenly the big power users (videocard,cpu) are all powering off the 12V rail, so it becomes the limiting factor rather than a wattage rating. Wheras before the CPU would power off the 5V rail, with older PSU's designed with that in mind. So try to run that older PSU on the newer system and it often has issues since it wasn't designed for the newer system with an entirely different rail draw (almost all off 12V rail, instead of a mix). Besides most of today's systems have trivial wattage usage, see SilentPCreview (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article265-page1.html) for measured wattage draws of 6 different computers. It's quite obvious from the P4 dual core, that even a quality 350w unit could power it provided it had a big enough 12V rail, since the 12V rail draw was 17A, but only a 223W total wattage draw (DC). so therefore wattage ratings are generally now a poor guide to how good a PSU is (order of importance roughly is: PSU Brand, 12V rail capacity, needed connectors (24pin in particular), Group regulation or not (none preferred), then wattage). As a 'rule of thumb', unless the combined 12V rail capacity is at least 90% of the total wattage rating (eg 30A for a 400W psu) , the 12V rail will be the limiting factor for modern systems (not wattage rating).

14-04-2006	#1
Nosmartz MyCE Resident Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 2,170	Software to check PC watts usage? Is there software out there to check how many watts your PC is pulling?I wanna see what mine does to see if I need a stronger power supply

14-04-2006	#2
slayerking CD Freaks Fartman Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Crypt of Kaos© Posts: 2,675	Re: Software to check PC watts usage? have you tried Motherboard Monitor __________________ there's always a way! cd protections are illegal! what's that smell! Join Us! Here at cdfreaks "Space. . . It seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you." Chat Quotes [4:44pm] * @taHkroW dubs SK the best king of the world. DO NOT message me asking about diablo 2 .mpq files you will not get a response.

14-04-2006	#3
Dennis L MyCE Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: USA Posts: 173	Re: Software to check PC watts usage? Not a program, but a way to estimate ... Power Supply Wattage Calculator Please note above automatically adds power needs for MOBO, floppy, KeyBoard/mouse, CPU fan. Select your components from lists. It only allows for 2 optical drives to be calculated in summary. So you will have to do some mental math to add in additional power needs based on optical type/power. As per your search for a installed program to do above ... would probably require a physical/hardware interface to provide information to running program. Best solution, get/borrow multi-meter which can test power draw.

14-04-2006	#4
geoff2k CD Freaks Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 86	Re: Software to check PC watts usage? You can get devices like the Kill-A-Watt that will measure this for you. They are pretty affordable. __________________ Sony DRU-510A . TS-H552B . NEC 3550A . BTC 1016 . BenQ 1640 . LiteOn SHM-165P6S . BenQ 1655 . LiteOn SHM-165H6S Opteron 144 CAB2E 0546 UPMW . XP-120 HS . Panaflo 120mm L1A . DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D . 2 GB (2x1GB) OCZ EL PC4000 XTC @ 3-4-3-8 Connect3D x850 xt pe . Dell 1901FP . Seasonic S12 600W . Antec SX1040B

15-04-2006	#6
Nosmartz MyCE Resident Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 2,170	Re: Software to check PC watts usage? thanx for the input guys...ima check em all out..

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