looking

[slept]

to build a low energy using computer to keep on to dl things while i sleepas it is now, my normal rig sucks up way too much energy to leave on all the timeso, i'm looking at where to startany suggestions?

[Looneybomber]

Let's address the problem instead of working around it. Why? Because 500.00 buys a lot of power for your current computer, but just how much?

First we need to know how much power your comp consumes. I'm going to assume an average of 350w or .35kwh (kilowatt hour). Around here, our power company charges 6.70 cents per kwh. Let's do the math.

.35kwh x 6.70cents/kwh = 2.345 cents per hour, or 204.55 dollars per year if you left your computer on non-stop all year long. To break even in 1 year, you'd have to build a computer for 102 dollars and have it use only HALF the amount of power as your current computer...and never turn your current computer on.

Why does your current rig suck up too much power?

[slept]

i currently run a 600 watt ps to power my dual core sli rigi leave my computer on all the time before, but since i built the new rigthe bill has jumped quite a bit

i thought maybe building a separate computer to turn on and dl whilei sleep and turn off my main rig might help alleviate some of the drain

i'm not so worried about the cost of building a new rigits just that, my folks dont quite appreciate the jump in the monthly billi do pitch in some extra each month to help though

[240Knightrider]

Depending on your motherboard you should have some power saving settings taht allow you to reduce power. Even shutting down some of the Processor and so forth.

If your looking for a cheap computer get a dell or something from ebay for $150-$200 with low hardware ratings. Of course that depends on what your running through out the night.

[j35us]

If you're just using the computer for downloading, a simple computer with any cpu athelon/pentium 4 or above and a network card will work. Also, if you know what you're doing in bios, you can change your computer's power consumption to lower the voltage on your cpu, and usually your graphics card's advanced settings allow to over/underclock your gpu.