9 replies to this topic

[sitamurphy]

First: Can anyone tell me about how many watts a computer uses? And if it depends on the computer, than can someone tell me how I might figure something like that out. I am having some electrical issues at my house and until it is fixed I have to pay attention to how many watts are being used in my room.

Second: My mouse for some reason has gone haywire on me. The pointer will POP to the other side of my screen all of a sudden just from me making a slight movement. It is really messing up my game playing abilities, but I can't figure out why it is doing this. I was hoping someone might have an idea. Oh yeah, it one of those laser light ones :)

[jfade]

Hi sitamurphy!

I'm not sure about the first question, but I do know something about the second! I've had optical mice before, and I had the same problem. Turns out that my mousepad had a funny texture on it that was causing the jumping. What I find works best is a smooth, plain textured (or not textured at all) mouse pad. So try changing your mousepad and see if that helps. :)

[Darth Joules]

sitamurphy said:

First: Can anyone tell me about how many watts a computer uses? And if it depends on the computer, than can someone tell me how I might figure something like that out. I am having some electrical issues at my house and until it is fixed I have to pay attention to how many watts are being used in my room.

Unfortunately it is not that easy. It is easy to find how many Watts the PC uses from the PSU, but that's not how many Watts the PSU itself is using from the mains (wall socket). This is because PSU are basically an AC to DC converter. It takes AC current from the mains and converts into DC current that the components in your PC can use.

How efficiently a PSU converts AC to DC effects how many Watts it needs to draw from the mains. The efficiency of the PSU is effected by well it was designed. Cheap PSUs are notoriously inefficient, where as top quality PSU can be very efficient. An example:

A Ultra XConnect 500W PSU needs to draw 710W AC from the mains to produce 500W DC. Very inefficient (not to mention its bad habit of exploding). A Seasonic S12 500W PSU only needs to draw 600W AC to make 500W DC. Very efficient (and an excellent PSU to boot).

I can work out how many Watts your PC uses if you can tell me everything that is inside your PC: type of CPU, RAM, how many hard drives, how many optical drives (floppy, CD, DVD, etc), multi card readers, USB devices, Firewire devices, number of fans in the case, etc. Then I need to know what model PSU you have and its Wattage rating. And then can give you a rough idea how my your PC uses.

If it's an unbranded PSU it will definitely be inefficient. Also it will in all likehood not be able to actually produce the Watts its rated at. And it'll be probably be rather unstable beyond 50-75% load.

I don't know what the problem your having but I'd err the side of caution and not use your PC until your household electrics are properly fixed (and made safe).

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Second: My mouse for some reason has gone haywire on me. The pointer will POP to the other side of my screen all of a sudden just from me making a slight movement. It is really messing up my game playing abilities, but I can't figure out why it is doing this. I was hoping someone might have an idea. Oh yeah, it one of those laser light ones.

Check that your mouse pad or working surfaces isn't dirty or damaged. And like jfade said make show the surface is smooth. If your using a specialized gaming mousepad that's textured, the grain should be even arcoss the pad. Then check the underside of the mouse for muck and dirt especially where the laser hole is. Make sure it's off when you do this or you may blinf yourself with the laser. If its a wired mouse check the connection to the PC is secure and the cable isn't snagging on anything. If its wireless check the batteries in the mouse aren't flat.

If none of that works, re-install the drivers for the mouse if it has any.

[sitamurphy]

Thanks. I will start with trying a new mouse pad. I already made sure everything was clean and dust free and checked the cords. The mouse pad is flat and smooth but I don't know what else to do. I don't know what a driver is.

As far as that other info, I don't know some of that.
Heres what I know I have:

Dell Dimension DM051
Intel®
Pentium® 4 CPU 3.00GHz
2.99GHZ, 1.00 GB of RAM

It has one optical drive.
Unless the card readers are in the back it has none.
I don't know what a USB device is unlees you mean my printer and then that is all I have connected.
I know nothing regarding the fan and the only thing I know about firewalls is that they exist in some manner for some reason and web sites tend to frequently tell me to disable them. Which I never do because I don't even know what the stupid thing is for. I believe I have it though. Somewhere tied in with my McAfee Virus thing.
I don't know what a wattage rating is. Isn't that what I am asking for here, LOL!

Sorry I don't know a whole lot about computers. I actually need to know how many amps it uses but since I don't even know if a computer would use a full amp of power I asked for watts. But the exact amount isn't as important as knowing if it comes close to one, two, or even three amps.

Basically I just have to make sure my room isn't using more than 15 amps of power. Which should sound easy I know but I have an electric heater in my room right now which is using 12 amps.

[mbella77]

Check the sticker on the power supply.

[Darth Joules]

mbella77 said:

Check the sticker on the power supply.

Not that simple! :tug: Most PSU manufacturers actually exaggerate their units output or usage. Besides, all you may find is how many maximum Amps your PSU outputs on all its power rails and not what the input being drawn from the wall socket which is a totally different kettle-of-fish as I stated in my last post.

sitamurphy said:

Sorry I don't know a whole lot about computers. I actually need to know how many amps it uses but since I don't even know if a computer would use a full amp of power I asked for watts. But the exact amount isn't as important as knowing if it comes close to one, two, or even three amps.

Well....it's not really that straight foward coverting Watts to Amps. Watts = power, Amps = flow per second, and Volts = force....blah, blah, to put it simply. Anyway, to err the side of caution I'm gonna assume your PSU is very inefficient at coverting AC current to DC current. Let's say it takes 650 Watts from the wall to make 400 Watts for the PC. And your in the US where the standard voltage is 110V.

650W divided by 110V = 5.9 Amps

I'd guess your PC needs about 6 Amps from the wall socket. That makes you way over with the electric heater on....not to mention along with anything else electrical like light bulbs, etc. Does this help?

[sitamurphy]

Yes, that helps a lot thank you so much. Even if it is not exact, at least I have an idea of which I had None! I was turning the heater off when using the PC just to be safe because sometimes if I ran both it would flip the breaker switch, but sometimes it wouldn't. Then I found out it had to do with the thing heating up so I figured that was why sometimes it didn't flip.

That is all much more technical than I thought it would be. Someone told me to average 100 watts at about 1 amp although it wouldn't be exact. So that was why I asked about watts at first. But I never thought about the whole volt thing.

Anyway I am in the US so I will just continue to use my computer minus heater wrapped in electric blanket! :)

P.S. For some reason there is no tag on my PC's power cord.

[sitamurphy]

BTW, Darth Joules I love your avatar, is it you?

[Darth Joules]

sitamurphy said:

That is all much more technical than I thought it would be. Someone told me to average 100 watts at about 1 amp although it wouldn't be exact.

Not a very good rule-of-thumb because it is wholely dependant on Volts. If you live in the US then 100W does equal 1 Amps (100W divided by 110V) for wall sockets. However in the UK it would be 0.4 Amps (100W divided by 240V).

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BTW, Darth Joules I love your avatar, is it you?

Heh, :lol: no 'tis the late British Comendian Kenny Everett.

[sitamurphy]

Well its a great picture. And thanks again for your help.