I’m in the process of getting my Home Assistant environment up and running, and decided to run a test: it turns out that my gaming PC (custom 5800X3D/7900XTX build) uses more power just sitting idle, than both of my storage freezers combined.

Background: In addition to some other things, I bought two “Eightree” brand Zigbee-compatible plugs to see how they fare. One is monitoring the power usage of both freezers on a power strip (don’t worry, it’s a heavy duty strip meant for this), and the other is measuring the usage of my entire desktop setup (including monitors and the HA server itself, a Lenovo M710q).

After monitoring these for a couple days, I decided that I will shut off my PC unless I’m actively using it. It’s not a server, but it does have WOL capability, so if I absolutely need to get into it remotely, it won’t be an issue.

Pretty fascinating stuff, and now my wife is completely on board as well; she wants to put a plug on her iMac to see what it draws, as she uses it to hold her cross-stitch files and other things.

  • Codilingus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    8 个月前

    It will help some, and will also help temps, but AMD hardware does well with undervolting, especially the 5800X3D. I undervolt mine, and read the consensus that - 30 across all cores should be achievable for anyone, unless they’re really, really unlucky. My 6800 XT I also only run @ 92% Voltage, and it runs cooler and faster now, too.

      • Codilingus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        The CPU was done in BIOS on an ASUS x570. For me it was under AI Tweaker > Precision Boost Override > Curve Optimizer.

        The GPU was done in the driver software on Windows. Or LACT if on Linux.

  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 个月前

    Yeah, I’ve actually been pretty disappointed as of late with the power consumption of my custom PCs. I actually can’t remember the last time I had a PC with sleep states that actually work, maybe it was 8 years ago?

    On my last motherboard, whenever you woke the machine from sleep, some board modules wouldn’t power up correctly, you had to restart to get full functionality again. I have a second PC as a home media server, that one never fully wakes up from any sleep state (luckily it’s a server, so it’s always on). My current gaming PC regularly crashes whenever the machine is (ironically) at low processor load. (That’s the amd automatic energy saving features totally failing)

    I don’t know whether to blame the motherboards, the processors, or the OS, but any way you slice it, my computers are only happy if they’re consuming 300 watts all the time…

    And on the other hand, I gather chest freezers are actually decently efficient.

  • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0·
    8 个月前

    It has never occured to me my whole life to not suspend or shut down computers overnight. It wakes up in like 2 seconds why wouldnt you, even if it used only an extra 1W

    • vividspecter@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      It has never occured to me my whole life to not suspend

      Reliability issues with suspend-to-ram are rather common. Shutting down is an option, but session save and restore is a relatively recent thing and not supported by all desktop environments. I.e. it’s the post startup part that takes the longest.

    • SaltySalamander@fedia.io
      0·
      8 个月前

      You must be pretty young, because back in the dark days of spinning HDDs a computer would take 5+ minutes to boot.

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        Those days were at worst almost 10 years ago.
        Stop living in the past with those situations.

        And you get an SSD.
        And YOU get an SSD.
        And you fine sir also get an SSD!

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        Those were different times.

        They are not relevant anymore with current self hosting setups.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        Suspend != boot

        Even in 2010 or earlier waking a pc from suspend would have only taken 2-3 seconds because the whole system state is in RAM not on disk.

    • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      TBH I didn’t think it used a whole lot at idle, what with modern manufacturing processes and all. I was fairly surprised.

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      The problem I have with this I put the PC to sleep overnight every night - and like clockwork, Windows wakes it back up sometime overnight to do… Something.

      I’ve been diagnosing the issue for years - checking wake timers, switching hardware devices permissions to wake the system off. I might fix it for a few months and then a new Windows update comes along and it’s back to its usual routine of waking itself.

      Looking forward to seeing if it persists with Linux when I move at the end of support period for Win10 later this year.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        Looking forward to seeing if it persists with Linux

        I have never had what you described happen in my past 15 years of using linux, i hope you find your way around things, linux is dope once you get used to it.

        My PC goes down from 70W idle to 2W when suspended. I also have a master slave power strip, that turns of all my peripherals (speakers, lights, audio interface, etc) when the PC drops below 10W so that saves some extra energy.

        • pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          8 个月前

          Yeah I use Linux for my servers and my HTPC, but I never really hibernate or sleep those so I had no idea if it might occur there too. It’s great to hear this is not likely to be an issue - thanks

        • OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          8 个月前

          Windows is gonna Windows. Even if you did track down the issue your one update from a borked system or square one when they alter the setting and relocate it on their own accord.

    • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      Yeah, I noticed haha. Though I did have a big freezer some years ago that was a pretty hefty power suck… I never measured it, but it definitely affected my power bill.

  • rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0·
    8 个月前

    Yeah, energy monitoring ruined several things for me. Can’t let my PC idle anymore, can only turn on the dishwasher when the sun is shining, need to explain regularly to my wife, why our home network and server infrastructure consume 130 Watts per hour, have to automate all plugs with standby devices connected…

    The damn freezer consumes only 400 Watts per day while Network infrastructure, server, Wallpanels and KNX consume 3 Kilowatts, I wish I would have never learned this.

    • Zeoic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      Just fyi, Watts is a measure of power, and WattHours is power over time. So your home network and server consume 130w, which would be 130wh after an hour, or 3120wh after a day. The chest freezer would be 400wh in a day, rather than 400w in a day.

      • rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        Thanks for the heads up, I often let the time slip when casually talking about stuff like this.

        Actually the server and network consumes 130Wh or around 3120Wh a day, while my freezer (actually a fridge) consumes 400Wh per day or around 16Wh. That’s also the reason why I was shocked about the consumption, as you would guess a fridge takes more.

    • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      I’ve got a decent handle on my electric bill. I already have it set to “equal pay”, so I pay roughly the same amount every month - which includes my server cluster running 24/7.

      I did some quick math, and my PC’s estimated usage for a month is ~70 kW/h, which is ~$10 in my area. My last power bill was 1,145 kW/h total.

  • AliSaket@mander.xyzEnglish
    0·
    8 个月前

    Yeah I made a similar discovery after installing a Shelly Switch with Power Metering. The monitors and their brightness make a huge difference as well when in or near idle (for photography, so not a surprise). I’ve also implemented an “anti-standby” function, so the switch opens whenever the current falls under a specific threshold.

    For the WoL, since I have a switch, I configured my BIOS so it would turn on after power loss. Now I can start to boot up from afar :)

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    8 个月前

    Cool!

    Just be cautious that you don’t over-optimize for power. I ran around my house w/ a Kill-a-watt meter checking everything and made some tweaks, and I still don’t think it has paid for itself since power costs are so low here ($0.12-0.13/kWh, so 10Wh 24/7 < $1/month), and some of the things I tried doing made my life kinda suck. So I backed off a bit and found a good middleground where I got 80% of the benefit w/o any real compromises.

    For example, here’s what I ended up with:

    • put desktop to sleep - power draw is negligible, and I don’t need to keep typing my FDE password to use it
    • “upgraded” NAS from old 2009 HW to my old gaming PC HW (1st gen Ryzen) - cut power draw in half, but I had to buy some RAM; will take years to pay off w/ electricity savings, but it has much better performance in the meantime
    • turn off work laptop - was drawing ~20W; I WFH MThF, so I leave it on Th night for convenience, but have it sleep M-W and turn it off Friday

    I could probably cut a bit more if I really try, but that would be annoying.

    • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      Yeah, my power bill is pretty reasonable already, considering my large family plus all the electronics I run. I just like seeing what everything is doing as a matter of curiosity.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        Oh yeah, as a hobby, it’s absolutely fun. I like tinkering with all kinds of things.

        My point was to just be careful since it’s not necessarily going to be worth the expense and time.

        I’ve been considering getting a breaker-level power monitor to watch for spikes. It’s a bit more expensive (hundreds of dollars), but it measures the types of things I’m interested in. My kid flipped on our gutter heaters (I never use them) and shot our electricity bill to the moon for a couple months until I noticed. If I had a home energy monitor, I would’ve noticed a crazy energy spike and that might have paid for itself.

        • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          0·
          8 个月前

          Yeah, I never expect a financial ROI for hobbies; the ROI for that is nothing more than my own enjoyment.

  • sploosh@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 个月前

    I recently bought a Mac Mini because music production on Linux had me fighting my tools more than using them. My Linux box is a 7800x3d/7800xtx. The Mini idles at 4w, while the 78000xtx alone idles closer to 50w. I use the mini for everything non-gaming now.

  • cooljimy84@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 个月前

    What res is that monitor ? My 2k monitor is pretty hungry compared to my old 1080. Even just looking at the uk energy efficiency ratings for 4k tells shocks me !

    • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      Right now I just run dual 1080p. I plan on upgrading to a 120Hz+ 1440p ultrawide at some point, but priorities… My entire desk setup is currently consuming 12 watts with the PC shut off. That’s ~90W just from the PC.

      • cooljimy84@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        So my partner and I use laptops (small flat) so really sip power compared to the 65 watt of the monitor

        • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          0·
          8 个月前

          Very nice. I don’t like laptops for gaming, but I recognize and appreciate the utility of them; I use my laptop (Thinkpad T14 G1 AMD) more than my gaming PC for most things outside of that.

      • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        Is your GPU reducing the VRAM frequency when it’s idle?

        If the vertical timing is different between the monitors, the VRAM will have to run at maximum speed all the time and that can add 20 watts or more to your idle power consumption.

    • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      Perfect, I don’t need to run the fans anymore!

      Seriously though - we have 5 kids, and feeding the little shits is expensive, so we freeze a lot of things for storage. I thought for certain the freezers would be power hogs compared to an idling PC, but I was very surprised to be proven wrong.

      Next up… Measuring my server cluster 😬

        • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          0·
          8 个月前

          I know they’re gonna be a power suck lol. Three mini PCs, a SFF PC, 4-bay hard drive docking station, 8-port switch, and a RPi0w… Hoping for a max of 200W, but I suppose we’ll see what happens 🫤

          • VonReposti@feddit.dkEnglish
            0·
            8 个月前

            I see your 4-bay docking station and raise my 20-bay storage server. I even stopped counting how much the hardware costs for it :p

            • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
              0·
              8 个月前

              FYI - the cluster is pulling 115-140 watts.

              • 1x Mac mini 2014, running OMV as a dedicated NAS (i5-4308U, 16GB RAM)
              • 4-bay Sabrent DS-SC4B, attached to Mac mini (3x 4TB WD Reds in RAID5, 1x 4TB WD Black as hot spare)
              • 1x 8TB WD backup drive (it’s something)
              • 2x HP Elitedesk 800 G3 mini (or G4, don’t remember), both running Proxmox (i7-7700T, 32GB RAM each)
              • 1x Dell Optiplex 7050 SFF running Proxmox (i7-7700, 32GB RAM)

              All running multiple VMs (Docker and other) and LXC containers.

              I’m impressed, honestly. I was expecting 200+ watts minimum. It’ll be interesting to see the spikes as it’s used over time. I am going to move the HA server (Lenovo M710q running HAOS on a Pentium G4560T & 4GB RAM) down to the cluster soon, as it’s sitting on my desk at the moment…

              • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
                0·
                8 个月前

                I’m surprised! Seems like it should be more, but I haven’t done any wattage calculations in a while, so maybe power efficiency really has gotten that much better.

                Do you know if the drives were spun up or down at the time? I know idle vs. active makes a difference, but if they were spun down entirely, that’s kind of cheating.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
      0·
      8 个月前

      This game a serious chuckle… BC I deff considered it. Or keeping the box on balcony in the winter to get few more fps back in the day

      • Darkassassin07@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        A fridge can create a fairly low overall temp, but with something like a PC generating a ton of heat inside, it can’t keep up. The fridge just can’t move the heat fast enough and becomes an insulated box trapping the heat instead.

  • MudMan@fedia.io
    0·
    8 个月前

    Yeah, man, getting into Home Assistant and messing with energy monitoring did more than thousands of chastising TV segments to get me to fully shut down my computers.

    Who gives a crap about gaming use power consumption, give me idle benchmarks, you cowards. Do you even know how kWh work?

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
      0·
      8 个月前

      Plus PC that’s idling is just adding an attack surface IMHO

      This tinfoil getting hella tight lately 🥲

          • tofuwabohu@slrpnk.netEnglish
            0·
            8 个月前

            No. What kind of attack are you afraid of by idling a computer connected to your ISP router?

            • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              8 个月前

              Any program on your PC that maintains or frequently initiates outbound connections, other machines on your LAN spreading an infection, literally any Trojan, etc. Double that if you haven’t disabled UPnP on your ISP router which is probably on by default.

              • tofuwabohu@slrpnk.netEnglish
                0·
                8 个月前

                If you are afraid of your PC infecting itself by background outbound connections, you should not turn it on at all. Running 24h vs 6h a day barely makes a difference in this regard - yes, there are fewer “random internet noise attacks” in less hours, but if your LAN is that dangerous, the computer should not be on for 5 minutes. Either you trust your LAN enough to have a computer running, or not.

                Double that if you haven’t disabled UPnP on your ISP router which is probably on by default.

                Talking about the sane defaults I mentioned earlier - my router has it off as a default. But if it wasn’t, my approach wouldn’t be to turn devices off¹ but change the router setting.

                ¹ I actually do turn off/plane mode all my non-server devices when I’m not using them but not for that reason.

                • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  8 个月前

                  You’re totally right, not turning it on at all would be safer. But we do need to use them so it makes sense to turn it on while in use. Security is only good up to the point of it making your machine unusable. Most of the attacks you see on running computers by happens overnight anyway, or otherwise when your machine is sitting idle not in use. Plus it gives you the opportunity to witness odd behavior if it were to happen while you’re using it.

                  And no, you should never trust your LAN in the year of our lord 2025. We are well beyond that in the cybersecurity landscape and have been for 10+ years. Zero Trust is the name of the game. If a device is on, and connected to the internet, it’s a target, as are any other devices on that network. Pretend that is not the case at

  • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
    0·
    8 个月前

    Couple of thoughts:

    1. That smart plug may not be rated to the max wattage when GPU and CPU are at full blast. Be careful, because that could be an expensive mistake. Place a surge protector between the smart plug and the PC to be safe. Also run the PC full tilt for a while and make sure the smart plug doesnt get warm. If it does, fores have been known to start from those.

    2. Sounds like you know this with WoL, but suspend is your friend 😉 If the gaming PC is linux and you run into suspend issues, let me know, I’ve seen 'em all.

    • Sinthesis@lemmy.todayEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      Place a surge protector between the smart plug and the PC to be safe.

      What benefit does this serve in this situation?

      • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
        0·
        8 个月前

        Depends on the driver. Usually for finicky ones you can do an rmmod at suspend and a modprobe on resume. What distro, and are you using the default suspend mechanism?

        • ☂️-@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          8 个月前

          yes, i’m on ubuntu, using all the default drivers.

          and i would guess its finnicky because its an old laptop.

          is it a matter of scripting rmmod and modprobe to run on suspend/wake?

          • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
            0·
            8 个月前

            There are a couple of ways:

            1. Formally add a system entry to run at suspend/resume (like how nvidia does in their driver package)

            Or

            1. Write a script that rmmods, suspends, sleeps, modprobes, and map it to Cntrl-Alt-Shift-S

            I usually do 2 because I like the hotkey method for desktops, and it keeps things the same for both. Also allows me to close a lid on a laptop and leave it on. But 1 is more “formal”.

            Happy to share some scripts if you’d like, on my phone now, though.

    • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      8 个月前

      The plugs are rated for 1800W each. Should be fine. I hit 670W a bit earlier, running Furmark VK and Cinebench R23 multi-core simultaneously for shits and giggles.