On Sun, 6 Sep 2009 09:19:06 +0100, PeterC wrote:

As for the power monitor: at first my PC was shown as flicking between
80 - 90W, which is about the same as on the above MM. Turning off the
monitor dropped it to 40 - 50W, which is about right for a 35W monitor.
Next time I turned on the PC it was 190W! The monitor dropped it by
~100W - not bad via a 12V 3.3A PSU.

Did you let it settle or was that the first reading after the switch
on. OK SMPSU's shouldn't have much of an inrush compared to a motor
or transformer based PSU but there will be a bit.

If the PC were to run at 90W+ the CPU would fry as it's 65W TDP and is
very rarely at 50%.

The CPU load does affect the power it takes but I'm not convinced
it's a great deal and there will be other stuff taking power like the
north and south bridges, graphics, and memory. Still it does look a
bit odd.

I have a CurrentCost CC128 with the serial data hooked up to the
server for logging. It's fun ploting out the days usage, I always
turned the coffee machine off once the jug was half empty to stop the
coffee stewing but having seen the plot will be better at that. As
for the kettles "keep warm" feature...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/allsorts-60/3891740435/

--
Cheers
Dave.