Power usage monitoring software

[Theldron]

Hi all,

 

I am looking for some software that will monitor our PC's energy usage. I want to be able to see what sort of energy consumption our PC's are having. Free would be preferable. I know i am not asking much.

 

Also we am currently using RM CC3 included power management software can anyone recommend any other software that I could use with CC3? Again free would be preferable.

 

Many thanks

Great community

Sean

[speckytecky]

Haven't tried it but this one from Tesco sounds pretty good?

[plexer]

To measure a true power reading I would guess you would also need some hardware as software alone won't do it.

 

I'm currently looking into using 1-wire sensors for temeprature monitoring and power failure monitoring but also just found this 1 Wire Energy Monitor which could be interesting.

 

Ben

[jsnetman]

You can download joulometer from Microsoft. With the right calibration it will do what you want. I installed it a while ago on some of our desktops to see what the overall consuption was over a few weeks with different power saving mode policies.

[ViOnline]

Didn't know MS has such software. Will try it, as it looks very interesting.

[ViOnline]

but it works only on Win7

[JasonM]

Hi all,

 

I am looking for some software that will monitor our PC's energy usage. I want to be able to see what sort of energy consumption our PC's are having. Free would be preferable. I know i am not asking much.

 

Also we am currently using RM CC3 included power management software can anyone recommend any other software that I could use with CC3? Again free would be preferable.

 

Many thanks

Great community

Sean

 

No software solution running on the PC is ever going to be able to monitor the actual power usage of the PC.

 

Firstly, you can only ever monitor this on the "mains plug" side of the power supply to do it accurately and take into account the relative efficiency/loss of the PSU itself.

 

Secondly, it would be impossible for the software to monitor how much power it was using whilst in standby, hibernation or sleep when it actually IS in standby, hibernation or sleep.

 

Thirdly, the constant polling/monitoring of any such software might keep the PC "active" so it can't ever become idle and drop into standby, hibernation or sleep.

 

The simplest, lowest-tech option is to buy a small power meter (£10 quid from Maplin) and monitor devices throughout the day, or just reset the kWh counter at the start of the week and measure it again at the end of the week.

 

I would also suggest connecting the power meter to a two-way, four-way or six-way extension lead so that you can measure it with a CRT/TFT monitor if required, or measure small groups of devices together (for a more accurate average).

 

Once you have got the calculations you can use the advanced carbon calculator linked in this post:

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/green-computing/71862-decent-carbon-calculator.html

 

...to work out energy used/wasted by Cost, kWh and Metric Tonnes of carbon (for CRC or CSR purposes).

 

Once you have done this you need to add on another 1Watt for every 3Watts of computer usages to account for any cooling/aircon required to remove the heat (if you actually have aircon that is). This is based on an assumption that most aircon units operate at 300% efficiency (which several air-con engineers have confirmed to me as a good rule-of-thumb)

 

Anyhow..What are you going to use the figures for once you have them?

 

JasonM

[crassus17]

How about using Aerofoil? search for one. It can save power. But I think its for laptops.

[PeteHopton]

VeryPC have some software similar to the Microsoft stuff, but with the added benefit that it reports back to the server allowing you to collect information, it's not on general release yet but I'd be happy to subscribe anyone to the beta program, just drop me a message.

 

Like the MS program it does need calibration, we undertook a number of tests to figure out the best power meters to recommend to customers. Various power meters were purchased and their readings in a variety of different scenarios compared to our expensive Lab power meter by Hameg, which is used for energy star testing and has accuracy of around 0.5%

 

The best power meters we found were these, which were available from maplin, PlugIn Mains Power and Energy Monitor : Power and Energy Monitors : Maplin

We found them to be +-5% off the Hameg when we then purchased a batch of them for our Quality control rig.

 

These meters also have a KWh feature, which might be handy for plugging in and forgetting for a week to then read the result and multiplying by the number of computers and the number of school weeks in a year.

 

Hope this Helps!