Could a big spike in energy bill be due to FAH?

[Nantes]

Guys, my household's energy bill (3 people) is usually 190-230 kWh. I went back from a 3-month absence (with 2 new housemates, the 2 old ones left) in March and began using FAH from then on. I checked my energy bill from 23 March to 23 April and it's a whopping 430 mWh. I want to determine if there's some sort of energy leakage in my apartment that is concidental with my beginning to use FAH, or the new housemates take really long hot showers, or it really is FAH's fault.

I use an overclocked i5 2500k @ 4.6 GHz to fold which consumes 85 W, 24/7. I also run a GeForce GTX 560 whenever I am not using the computer, which probably averages to around 18 hours or so on weekdays and 12 or so on weekends. I have no idea how much the GPU consumes. Could these settings justify a 200 kWh increase in consumption?

Thanks.

[P5-133XL]

calculate it out.

A rough estimate:

85W x 24h x 30day = 61kWh
230W x 18h x 30day = 124kWh

Total = 185kWh added to fold.

There is a distortion here. 85W is just the processor but the 230W is a system power estimate with the GPU under load. If you quit GPU folding then the power usage will drop but not by the entire 230W because your system is still running and there is a idle wattage that comes from the GPU. Still the numbers will work as a rough estimate. What you need is a Kill-a-Watt device to measure the accurate wattage used.

[Nantes]

Thank you, but Kill-a-watt is not available in Brazil that I know of.

I need to have an estimate of FAH's expenditures so I can deduce it from the energy bill. Currently we split the bill in 3, and doubling up their part because of my folding seems selfish. You think 150 kWh is good?

[P5-133XL]

I already gave you my best guess.

[bruce]

The kill-a-watt is available from many mail-order houses, if you find them somewhere that will ship to an international address. Just be sure you order one with whatever plug configuration is used in Brazil.

Many UPSs also can display power readings ... and if you need a UPS anyway, just look for one that can serve both functions.

[GreyWhiskers]

First, yes, folding will affect your utility bill. I have four computers that in aggregate draw about 750 watts when the monitors are on running 24/7. That makes a noticeable dent in my electricity bill!!

If you get a UPS with power readout, it's good to get one with a USB connection to the computer and a Windows gadget to display the power. It's easy to see the power consumption as your system goes through its various modes. If you are folding with the CPU but not the GPU, you can see the wattage, and if you have all folding off, you can see that wattage. And, if you have all folding on you can see THAT wattage. The gadget in the upper right is the CyberPower Windows 7 gadget.

I am probably overmonitoring my systems, but this is a screenshot of my laptop (with i7 2860QM processor, 16 GB RAM and GTX560M GPU). At the moment, I'm running a P8042 SMP8 work unit and a p8020 GPU WU. The entire laptop is pulling 150 watts from the UPS.Not shown is HFM.net that gives me my current and historical work unit statistics.

I also have Afterburner to monitor the GPU usage and temps and RealTemp to monitor the CPU temps. (if you are wondering about the saw-tooth patterns on the GPU Usage, I have the FAH_GPU_IDLE environment variable set to 30 - which in some projects/cores forces the GPU to rest, so I can manage the GPU temps.)

[artoar_11]

P5-133XL is correctly written. 85 W is just the CPU consumption.
The whole system (motherboard, CPU, GPU-idle, hard disk, RAM, fans and other devices) consume about ~ 150 W. I guess GTX 560 full load consumption about 120-140 W.

Look for reviews of these components in the network. There is always a test of consumption (W).
Do not forget for 4.6 GHz overclock

[ChelseaOilman]

I checked my energy bill from 23 March to 23 April and it's a whopping 430 mWh.

I used 2167 kWh last month and 3494 the month before that, most of which is used to run my computers.

[-alias-]

That is about the same I used last month too, close to 3500 KWh. My folding is using about 1700 KWh each month, but most of this is used to heat my house anyway. And after I changed from i7 rigs to G34, the number of computers has decreased from 9 to 4 and it made the most of the noise disappeared to. This made it possible to have all computers inside the house. Power drawn from the wall is also reduced from 3200 watts to 2370 watts, which I am very happy with.

[Nathan_P]

Folding would easily account for that much usage. my last bill was £270 for 3 months. Folding used £180 of that

[Jorge1950]

I use 700kWh per month. I have a simple system, which allows me to leave the heat generated inside the house or out.
Part of that consumption, 30%, it would have with normal use of the computer.