How much power is consumed by a laptop in AC mode?

Question

please compare power consumption to any typical appliance in the house

it's an acer travelmate 2420; usual programs run are IE & YM; 'cause my folks are complaining about electric bills and etc and i want to know if indeed i add up that much in our power bills

Answer 1

Hi there!
The two answers above give " general " answers but do not give you an accurate comparison to other appliances ( a microwave is
800 to 1500 WATTS, not 60 ! ), and do not give you any idea of the actual costs involved.

Looking at the Specifications ( links are listed below ) you are using
a MAXIMUM of 65 Watts. The power supply " rating " is for absolute worst case. The manufacturer's put in EXTRA wattage available to compensate for extra situations with a tollerance for surge usages. This means that a " 65 WATT " power supply is normally NOT using all 65 of the watts, and as you can see from the POWER MANAGEMENT features below, you can cut the Wattage severely using the Power Management Program in the laptop.

The basics of the usage would be:

44.6 W battery
65 W AC Adapter

65 Watts
In 1 hour, you would use 65 Watt/ hours.
Electricity is sold by Kilowatt hours ( thousands of Watt Hours )
Each electrical producing or providing corporation has different
rates of watt hours, so that anyone doing the math has to guess
' your ' rate, but take a typical rate of 4, 5 or 6 cents a KiloWatt Hour. The rates are often adjusted by the time of day, the time of year, and are often graduated by bulk stepping graduations-- one cost for the first X number of kilowatts, then another cost for the next X number of kilowatts, etc.
So take a guess average of 5 cents a Kilowatt/Hour.
Since you are using 65 Watts, in one Hour, you would use 65 / 1000 of 5 cents. This would be 0.325 Cents per Hour. In ten hours, you would use 3.25 cents. In a 24 hour day without turning off your laptop, you would use 7.8 Cents.

Another way of looking at this, is that you are using the same amount of electricity as a standard 60 Watt lightbulb.

If you keep track of how many hours a day you use your laptop, then at the end of a week, divide the hours by 10, and that costs 3 Cents. Just multiply each 10 hours of use by 3. If you use your laptop 120 hours a month, this would be 12 x 3 = 36 Cents a month.

You should look at an Electrical bill, and find the rate that you are actually charged for each Kilowattt / Hour, and do the math. You will then have a better idea of what the cost ACTUALLY is...

Also, to verify the " ACTUAL " cost, you can look at the real usage of the laptop, when running, with a common electrical meter, and then you know the " actual" Wattage of the device, and using the ' Actual " cost as noted on your Utility bill, you can come up with a very accurate cost per hour.

I have answered a question on how to measure the " actual " usage of a power supply, and here are the links for meters you can buy:

_________________________________________________________________
How can you find out how many Watts your PCs power supply uses?


Power Supplies with WATT METERS
http://www.highpowersupply.com/product-ps-hpc480102df.html
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817171001

Kill a Watt Meter

http://www.gooddeals.com/shopexd.asp_Q_id_E_119

Briggs and Stratton Meter

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/NTEprodprint?productId=200326720&prnbr=1704700&storeId=6970&catalogId=4006970&langId=-1

SAFE HOME 3 products
http://www.safehomeproducts.com/shp2/shpsearch.asp?source=adwords&kw=wattage+meter

Professional Watt meters
http://www.testequipmentdepot.com/amprobe/clampmeters/digitalac.htm
http://www.testequipmentdepot.com/fluke/currentclamps/330series.htm

http://www.testequipmentdepot.com/hioki/clampmeters/3280.htm
___________________________________________________________________

Further information on your computer is stated as:

Power Management

http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/forms/portal20.cfm?recordid=637&formid=3425&website=AcerPanAm.com/us&siteid=7293&words=all&keywords=&areaid=7


ePower Management ACPI Advanced Configuration and Power Management
by Windows OS

AC MODE

Settings you can change to LOWER your power USAGE:

CPU Speed
LCD bightness
Turn off Monitor ( time )
Turn OFF Harddrive ( time )
System Standby ( Time )
System Hibernation ( Time )

ON / OFF :
Wireless LAn
Bluetooth
carBus PCMCIA
Memory Card
Audio
WiredLan
FireWire ( IEEE 1394)

There is a RANGE of options given in the ACER Specifications,
with different amounts of RAM, Different CPU's at different
speeds, with different CD/DVD's etc. so that you are the only one
who knows which options you have.
Again, by actually measuring the power consumption with a meter,
you can accurately determine " real" usage...

main page

http://us.acer.com/acereuro/page4.do?sp=page3&dau22.oid=16126&UserCtxParam=0&GroupCtxParam=0&dctx1=25&CountryISOCtxParam=US&LanguageISOCtxParam=en&crc=2212295446

TravelMate 2420

Intel® Celeron® M processor 370/380/390
Mobile Intel® 910 GM L Express chipset

Windows Vista Capable2,
Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition (Service Pack 2) or Genuine Windows® XP Professional (Service Pack 2) preloaded
14.1" W XGA TFT LCD
256/512 MB of DDR2 400 memory, upgradeable to 2 GB using two soDIMM modules (dual-channel support) 40/60/80/100/120 GB ATA/100 hard disk drive
DVD/CD-RW Combo, or 8x DVD-Dual double-layer

Hope this information gives you a better idea of how to
find out the actual costs of running your laptop.

ROBIN

Answer 2

Your power supply will tell you! It's on the label. Look for the Amperage.
It isn't using squat towards power, trust me... Besides, you can go to http://www.intel.com and search for speedstepping technology. It's downloadable, and also helps narrow the consumption of power.
If you'll do more research on the EnergyStar program, you'll note that most of today's pc/laptop manufacturers look for ways to earn funding from this program. The best way to get it is to create technology that uses LESS energy. I bet that laptop has a few features built-in just for that reason.
Have no fears, your laptop is not an issue.

Answer 3

It really depends on what kind of computer you have and what power saving mode you have it on....but anyways on full running power a laptop generally uses the same amount of power as a Microwave on high power mode. Remember that this is an estimation though...it really depnds on the brands that you have in your house. Put more details on and i will be able to better answer the question.

Answer 4

About 27 kwh if used for 30 days 15 hours a day. It will cost hardly anything at all you probably wont even notice it on your bill