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Power Consumption And Reality?


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The meter he was using was a clamp-on amp meter. It uses a "clamp style" measuring device built on the top of a meter. It induces a magnetic field and in turn measures amperage running through a wire. It's an easier way to measure amperage than having to splice an amp meter directly in series with the line wire. It only work if you clamp around the line wire; if you just try and clamp it around the whole power cord it will not work. The ground and neutral will interfere.

 

I haven't personally measured the amperage used by a pc but it's good insight into how much is really used and it's good to know.

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Just for kicks I recently took a no name 250 Watt power supply at hooked it up to my machine that I'd talked about earlier. It's been running SI-Sandra "Burn In" for over 120 hours now. There's no sign of wear and tear on the power supply. I've even pulled the power supply out and tested it. My cousin popped it open and took at look at some of the internals of the powersupply; the conclusion: He said it's as good as new.

 

I guess I end this experiment with my cousin saying,

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You're gambling against the odds by actually trusting your hardware with a no-name PSU like that. The reason nobody here in their right mind would recommend that you use one is because the chance of it exploding and killing your stuff is much higher with it than with a quality unit. They also include other handy features like fluctuation control, ripple smoothing and all those other fancy things that could save your gear/prolong it's life in comparison to a crap unit like the 250 watter you ran.

 

I'd do that just for kicks with a P3 and an FX5700. No chance in hell that I'd do it with anything even remotely close to your setup.

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My cousin popped it open and took at look at some of the internals of the powersupply; the conclusion: He said it's as good as new.

He looked at it and concluded that? Rofl.

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Dear Edison,

 

You're a hack. And also kind of a tool.

 

Signed N. Tesla

^^^ :lol:

 

Totally normal. It is how the wattage is broken down that is important in a PSU, and the individual rail amp ratings. Total wattage means very little in picking out a psu. What is the point of a multi railed cheapo 500 watt psu has a single 12v rail that only has 150 watts and is rated at 10amps??? A common system would easily overpower that PSU, even if it never went over the "500 watt" rating.

 

There is a simple way to determine total power draw the computer is pulling without magnetic tools or w/e. I do NOT recommend this unless you have taken electronics courses and know what you are doing. Household current CAN KILL you. Just 60 milliamps .06Amps can be fatal after a few seconds - doing this can expose you to many many times that amount, capable of stopping a perfectly healthy persons heart in under a second :) Fun, huh?

 

That being said, you can splice an outlet cable, jump the multimeter into the terminal leaving the ground open and connect the other side to the psu plug, connect the DMM to the OTHER side, then plug it in with the dmm on amps. Multiply the amps by 120 and that is a rough estimate. Basically alligator clip the computers power cable to the spliced cable, with the DMM on amps in between.

 

Like stated though amps are not always in sync with volts in AC, so the readings may be innacurate, especially if the meter does not use RMS.

 

I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS METHOD!! EXPOSED ALLIGATOR CLIPS AND WIRES POWERED WITH LIVE HOUSEHOLD CURRENT ARE DANGEROUS!!!

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Dear Edison,

 

You're a hack. And also kind of a tool.

 

Signed N. Tesla

 

 

Dear N. Tesla,

 

Lay off the acid and stop trying to convince everyone your a genius.

 

earthquake machine? come on, get real!

 

Signed

 

T. A. Edison.

:rolleyes:

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Dear N. Tesla,

 

Lay off the acid and stop trying to convince everyone your a genius.

 

earthquake machine? come on, get real!

 

Signed

 

T. A. Edison.

:rolleyes:

:lol:

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Dear N. Tesla,

 

Lay off the acid and stop trying to convince everyone your a genius.

 

earthquake machine? come on, get real!

 

Signed

 

T. A. Edison.

:rolleyes:

Dear T. A. Edison,

 

Funny how most of your inventions were actually made by other people, but you got the credit.

Also funny how you hired me to solve all your problems, then got mad when I actually did.

 

I won't apologize for creating superior technologies and actually understanding what I was

doing rather than piecing things together and hoping they work.

 

Signed,

N. Tesla

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