Computer Wattage............

[Shovelhead]

is there way to find out the wattage that your devices are putting out....
kinda like belarc.com????
Grazie

[Techman]

yes.. look ate wattage on the back of the components. You will be surprised..

A 400 watt power supply in the CPU and a 130 watt monitor plus the laser printer that uses about 200 in idle.. Or, if you have a Phaser color printer that sits there using around 330 watts in idle. Add in the power used by your power conditioner/backup. It don't take long to use up $30 bux a month in power..

[Shovelhead]

I was concerned with wattage compatibility for additional hardware....
like if I wanted to add an external hard-drive or a super graphics card.

[signage]

The wattage requirements for the hardware you have installed should be added up and that would let you know how much of the 500watts you are currently using. Hope this helps

[njsigns]

I was concerned with wattage compatibility for additional hardware....
like if I wanted to add an external hard-drive or a super graphics card.

I have run many more things on a significantly smaller power supply. I would say that most external hard drives have their own power supply built in. I personally build my own external drives by getting the largest drive off Tigerdirect.com that I can afford (usually with a rebate too) and I buy external drive cases off of eBay. Put it together myself, and save about 100-150 bucks. It's really quite easy, I also get USB and Firewire options on the external for a fraction of the cost. Hope this helps...

Gene

[Cadmn]

shovel you can look all the wattages up on each component & it will suprise you but 500 is usually well within normal units range now if you run 5 extra Hds& 4 extra dvds then start figuring but 5 will cover a lot of stuff.