Don’t blame the fridge for your steep power bills — an Australian consumer agency study has found that videogame consoles and plasma flat-screen TVs are major electricity guzzlers, even when left on stand-by.
The recent study by Choice said Sony Corp’s Playstation 3, closely followed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and plasma television sets, consumed the most power out of a list of 16 electronic devices tested, including laptops, stereo systems and DVD players.
“Our tests found that leaving a Playstation 3 on while not in use would cost almost…five times more than it would take to run a refrigerator for the same yearly period,” said the study which was published on Choice’s website.
“The plasma TV set was also a power hungry device, consuming over four times more power than a traditional analogue set. The average desktop computer was third on the list.”
Do the darkness test before you go to bed. Walk around your home with the lights off. Any LED you see glowing – probably is on a device that’s wasting power. Of all the gadgets in our geek household, the only one we leave on overnight is the DirecTV DVR – it’s often recording in the middle of the night. Ain’t a need for anything else to be on.
And “standby” counts.
This all seemed to start back in the 1970’s. Remote control televisions had to have a portion of the electronics left on to respond to a command from the remote control. Back then, most had a “vacation switch” on the back to fully power the set down.
Now so many devices are actually just sitting in standby. This is done for quick power up, to keep settings in memory, and sometimes for no apparent reason at all.
We’ve also seen a big proliferation of “wall warts” as they make for cheaper manufacturing. Virtually all of these draw power even if not connected to the device they are designed to power. I keep all of our charger warts on a big power strip, and shut them off when they’re not charging.
These devices should be on a timer, especially the Playstation if indeed it uses that much power..an incredible amount for a device on standby.
Um. A Playstation takes more power than a REFRIGERATOR? I call shenanigans. Let’s see someone else repeat this experiment.
We need to ban large monitors for computers. The vast majority of tasks don’t require more than a 15inch screen. Why allow these large vanity monitors? We should also have a max power rating for screens when they are running at max contrast. You want brightness, go outside and stare at the sun. Also, we should cut back on these graphics cards burning hundreds of watts.
I like how it’s made to look like the PS3 costs $250/year while in standby. According to the fancy chart on the page, it costs $2.33/year on standby.
The $250/year is when it is ON, ready to go, just not maxed out processing vectorized polygons.
LCD Monitors also don’t take nearly the electricity of plasmas. Heck the 19″ LCD tested would cost 45 bucks on 24/7.
#3 is right, shenanigans.
I’ve been amazed at the number of led’s that light up the apartment at night. I dont’ need night lights, I have all kind of things like that.
My Xbox I could believe is such a power hog. I’ll even unplug the brick then I’m not using it. No reason for a trickle charge.
I’ve been wondering about my plasma. But I turn my monitors off (24′ LCD displays) when I’m not sitting at them.
I like the idea of the darkness test. Todays computers also resume from sleep and shutdown so quickly its not an inconvenience.
It all adds up.
(#4 who leaked in your cereal this morning?)
>>According to the fancy chart on the page,
>>it costs $2.33/year on standby.
I guess you didn’t get a passing grade in fancy chartology. It costs $2.33/yr when the power switch on the back is turned off.
Does the PS3 even HAVE a “standby” mode? I don’t see anything inconsistent in the article. You can say they’re just lying about the numbers if you like, but the article is internally consistent.
>>Todays computers also resume from … shutdown
>>so quickly its not an inconvenience.
I guess you’re not using Vista. Unless you want to shit, shower, and shave after turning the computer on, it’s a BIG inconvenience.
What about all those folding@home users – who leave their PS3s on 24/7 ?
#3,
the refrigerator draws power (about 300-600 watts) while cooling, then basicly draws no power once at temperature. When it warms up a little bit, the power comes back on, until the termperature drops again. It may actualy only draw power 20% of the time.
The play station draws power all of the time.
Note that frost free frezers are bad news. Every day, a heating element comes on to melt the days accumulated frost, then it cools down again. In some freezers, if you look at the correct time and place, you can see the heating coils glowing red hot. Others just heat the normal refrigeration coils. This uses a lot more power than a standard freezer.
Shenanigans! What a load of rubbish!
I’ve always hated “standby” mode. I only leave my modem and router plugged in because then i can turn on my laptop without having to wait. Everything else gets shut down and then the power strip gets turned off.
A quick google brings me right to a gov’t study, which notes that refrigerators are one of the most energy-hungry appliances in your household. A computer, contrariwise, is in one of the lowest spots on the chart, and what is a Playstation if not a computer?
#8. Mustard- “I guess you’re not using Vista. Unless you want to shit, shower, and shave after turning the computer on, it’s a BIG inconvenience.”
Sorry, but my laptop running Vista wakes up instantly, I guess you just have a crappy computer.
>>Sorry, but my laptop running Vista wakes up
>>instantly, I guess you just have a crappy
>>computer.
Naw, it’s state of the art. Plenty of RAM, plenty of HD space, plenty of processing power. And when I put it in sleep mode, it sometimes wakes up instantly. Sometimes it just freezes.
Vista is such an awful POS that it needs to be rebooted frequently, so when I’m going to turn my computer “off”, I turn it completely off.
And that means 10 minutes or more of nonsense while it reboots.
If I hadn’t gotten snookered into buying Vista as a mandatory “upgrade” on a new computer, I’d still be zooming happily along with XP. Thank goodness my Mac runs like a champ.
Yeah, Mustard, somethings wrong there. My Vista box is 45 seconds from power on to login prompt. Fastest windows boot I’ve ever seen.
#7 Mr. Mustard
“It costs $2.33/yr when the power switch on the back is turned off.”
No. It specifically says “Off(back switch on)”
That is officially “standby mode” on the PS3
#14 mark
“Sorry, but my laptop running Vista wakes up instantly, I guess you just have a crappy computer.”
LOL I tell him that all the time.
# 15 Mister Mustard
When will you realize that just because you think it is “state of the art” doesn’t make it so. 🙂
# 16 tcc3
I tried to explain to him about my Vista 64 boxes and how fast they boot but he is in denial because of a bad experience and the overwhelming and inaccurate reporting on Vista in the press. It has become “hip & vogue” to attack Vista.
I think most of the charts list a computer at 4 hours use per day. If you dont use standby, multiply the cost shown by 6.
>>It has become “hip & vogue” to attack Vista.
You think? I guess everyone else is wrong, and you and tcc3 are right.
Haw!
It’s really a great OS. But why is MSFT sweeping it under the carpet and pimping Windows 7?
Give it up, dude. It’s a fucking DISASTER.
Its nothing new. Is MS job to get you excited about their new product. Win 7 is still ~ two years off, more like 3-4 if you count the inevitable delays. They started the Longhorn buzz right after XP came out too.
They get vilified for taking too much time between XP and Vista. Now they’re “sweeping it under the rug” because they don’t take as long to put out Win7?
J you’re half right. Its in vogue to hate on MS.
We also need to ban remote controls, at least for the on button,which would reduce the standby powerusage. Nevertheless, we should start by banning screens of bigger than 15 inch.
You already made that point a long time ago Mike.
I’m getting into Computer Aided Design. That’s right, CAD. The job I’m getting into is practically the base for everything else to come. I’ll be second in line to see what goes down, because I’m the monkey developing the drawing for people with materials to create using diagrams I draw.
Now, I’m wondering what’ll suck less power; four, five, six monitors running at once or three large televisions in dual screen? Of course, I have to start single-monitor, but eventually, I’ll NEED multiple monitors for larger projects.
So Mike, bite a chunk of my ass. Also, I’ll take four or five Radeon 9500’s with me while I’m at it…
Yeah, but that’s not typical usage. Your power use and people like you would be a small bit. It’s all the other people getting 21 inch screens to browse the web and write e-mail. Limiting them to 14 inch screens would save energy. You can buy 100 screens.
Why is everyone getting hung-up on ‘standby mode’?
Quote (FTA):
“Turn off devices when not in use
Put devices like TVs, amplifiers, DVD and CD players, game consoles, speakers, and other devices into *standby mode* when not in use …”
Lyin’ MikeN, wtf is it with you and the “Big Screens Are Bad” fetish?
Jesus. Other than desperate housewives and retirees, most people use their computer for things other than browsing the web and using e-mail.
In my own particular case, it’s pretty important for my work that I have dual-sceen capability, and the bigger the better. Sure, I could struggle along on a single 14″ monochrome screen like I did in 1979, but why? Compared to the old CRTs, power usage of the new screens is minimal, and I hit the power button when I’m not going to be using them.
I’m voting with Mr. Bachman. Bite a chunk of my ass.
Then buy more than one screen. I’m saying is that we should restrict all screens, so that most people who buy a computer will have the smaller screen and use less energy. People who need multiple monitors can pay extra.