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If you’ve been reading other content on Watthackers, chances are good that you have heard of the Watts Up Pro Watt Meter and other similar devices.  If not, check out 10 Power Monitoring Devices to put Your House on a Diet and Save Power.

I’ve been busy this week, so when I got my Watts Up Pro last weekend, I plugged it into the wall and then plugged the power strip that powers my PC and wireless access point network into the Watts Up Pro.  I then walked away and forgot about this little black box until this morning.  So with coffee in hand, I thought I would try and dissect my home network’s diet. 

One of the reasons I ordered a Watts Up Pro is that it comes with data logging capabilities.  This means you can plug it in, walk away, and come back later to download the information to your computer.  This can be useful if you want to see in detail how a device performs over time.  If you think this feature is important to you, check out the following Watt Meters:

• Wattson
• Smart Watt
• The Energy Detective (TED)
• Watts Up Pro

The Watts Up Pro model can track between 1,000 and 32,000 data points depending on how much information you plan on tracking.  They have models with more memory, but I can’t see what’s going on in 32,000 points or less, I figure some things are better left unknown.  The software that comes with the device is pretty basic, so I imported the data into Excel to do my charting and analysis. 

The chart below represents the consumption of my computer and wireless network.  The following chart illustrates a full cycle of the computer from power off to peak use and back.

My main workstation is based on an AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+ chip.  This is a 2.2Ghz processor which has a lower 65w power consumption.  If you are looking to build a lower power workstation, I advise taking a look at these CPUs.  I run 2 gigs of ram and a GeForce 7600gt graphics card for the times that I want to fire up Flight Simulator X.  I also have a 400 gigabyte internal hard drive and a 500 gigabyte external usb hard drive for backups.   This setup works really well for most applications, although Adobe CS3 would like another couple gigs of ram.

Other peripherals include a LinkSys srx200 wireless router, Microsoft Digital Sound System, Microsoft Wireless desktop, and two LCD monitors (HP w2207h and a Sony HS74P.)  I guess I should also include my two Lexar Professional Compact Flash Card Readers that connect up via usb.  Printers were not metered as they are connected to a different outlet on the other side of the office.  I will need to review them separately.

Looking at the data, the average power consumption is 122.63 watts or .1226 kilowatts.  Since I leave my computer on 24/7, it adds up to 2.94 kilowatt-hours (kWh) or about 31 cents per day.  Stretch that out over a year and my system is burning 1,074 kWh and costs about $113.15 to operate. 

Before we can make a significant impact, on our energy consumption, we need to be aware of the opportunity; in this case, 1,074 kWh or 375 pounds for the carbon counters.  Really, for the amount of time I spend on the computer, that’s not too bad, but I would venture to guess that I can shave some watts off the network nevertheless. 

There are several areas that I would like to explore to ensure my computer/network is as eco friendly as possible.  Each of them may significantly impact the amount power that an ordinary home computer will draw :

1. Power Management Settings in Windows - Operating systems today are becoming more and more conscious of power management. Whether you are using a laptop and trying to eek out that last minute of battery life or building your dream workhorse system for the office, you might want to take a look a deeper look at the power management features of your favorite OS. Microsoft has made some promising advances with its release of Vista, but it still lacks the granular control that a true Watthacker longs for.
2. Hardware Power Savings Features - Printer, Monitors and other peripherals are now starting to come with power saving features built in. However, most are not set to take advantage of the eco friendly mode by default. Take a minute to review the power management features built into your existing hardware. Both my printers and my new monitor have low power mode which puts the device to sleep after a define period of time. I now set mine to 5 minutes.
3. Network configuration and power saving strategies - With wired and wireless networks now being common place in the home, it makes sense to take a look at your routers, switches, access points, and hubs to see if you are wasting energy. In my home, I currently operate 2 routers, a switch, a cable modem, and a VoIP box. A lot of these devices are now combined, so take a look at the hardware you are running and see if upgrading can save you some power.
4. Time of Use Planning - This is one area where I really suck. I leave my computer and network on 24/7/365 all in the name of convenience, but really there are certain blocks of time where I’m on the computer, and times when I’m not. Learning these patterns and shutting down you equipment when it’s not going to be used will save you some serious power over the long run.

Feel free to pass along your power saving strategies in the comments section. 

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1. Embarking on a Journey to Free Energy and Clean Air
2. New Power Saving Ethernet Switches from D-Link (Perfect for Solar Homes)
3. 10 Power Monitoring Devices to put Your House on a Diet and Save Power
4. Power Management in Windows Vista