Reddit mentions of TS-836A Plug Power Meter Energy Voltage Amps Electricity Usage Monitor,Reduce Your Energy Costs

You could also get a meter that you can plug between the wall socket and the power plug of your computer for pretty cheap, like this one. It tells you exactly how much energy you consumed.

To me it sounds like electrical portions are being leached into a neighboring unit or something like that.

Since your unit is so small, I'd take a look at the breaker box. Turn off power to everything you have, then flip the breakers to turn everything off. Turn on each thing individually to power only the areas you reside in. If there are any remaining after you have your whole unit powered, they may go to other rooms/units in a past renovation.

It may not turn anything up, but it'd be an interesting experiment to see what turns up.
Edit; If you want to try monitoring some of your things, like your pc, try getting one of these.

You can also get a meter and show them. His estimate is good, but the wats would most likely be much lower. Without a GPU you probably hover around 80wats total system draw with peaks just over a 100.

https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU

https://www.amazon.com/d/Industrial-Power-Meters/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/B00E945SJG

Yep, I use something like this: https://www.amazon.com/d/Industrial-Power-Meters/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/B00E945SJG

There's all price ranges, but the principle is the same, you put it in-between your device and the wall socket, so all current goes through it, then it can show it on a screen. Some of them do real time calculations based on your local electricity prices.

In order to answer this correctly, you need a little more information. You'll need to buy/borrow a power meter and see what your average power consumption is. The 1000w max number really doesn't mean much.

https://www.amazon.com/d/Industrial-Power-Meters/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/B00E945SJG

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Once you know how many amps or watts you draw, we can start sizing the system. How critical is it that this system be up and available 24/7? Are you trying to run a server that needs to have a 99.999% up time? Even with solar and batteries, there will be strings of cloudy days that may require you to stay plugged in, or if you can tie the alternator into the batteries, you'll have to run the engine or buy a generator to get you through bad weather days.

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Standard components:

Batteries - Either 12 Volt deep cycle, or pairs of 6 Volts golf cart batteries. Golf cart batteries tend to allow deeper discharge than the 12 Volt deep cycle, but come with lower overall capacity. Two 12 Volts will get you ~400 amp-hour rated capacity, four 6 volts will get you the same capacity, but generally last longer before needing to be replaced.

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120 volt Battery charger - can be a cheap pep-boys battery charger or a dedicated RV converter setup.

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Solar system - Number of panels will be determined once your average usage is known.

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Solar Charge Controller - size will be based on # of panels. Can be super cheap but not efficient, or expensive but efficient.

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Inverter - Takes your 12 Volt battery power and turns it into 120 volt AC to run your computer. You'll need a pure sine wave inverter if you're running electronics. Size will be based on average power consumption of the computer.

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Here's the numbers if you want to size to the full 2000 watt power draw:

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If you want to run the system off of the battery for 14 hours, you'll need the following:

2000 watts for 14 hours equals 28,000 watt-hours, or 28kwh.

The Tesla Power Wall has a capacity of 13.5 kwh, so two of those will get you close.

Battery: https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

I believe the new powerwalls come with built in inverters, so they should be able to output 120 volts directly. Weight = approx 600 lbs with wire and connections, they cost $7,800 each, so you're looking at just over 15k for your batteries. Other industrial sized batteries may be available slightly cheaper.

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Add as many solar panels as you can. You only get 4-7 equivalent hours a day of solar charging based on location:

https://www.nrel.gov/gis/assets/pdfs/solar_dni_2018_01.pdf

The Chevy Astro may be able to fit 4x100 watt panels on the roof. 400 watts for approx. 5 hours a day means you'll be able to charge the batteries about 2kwh per day minus any efficiently losses, so it would take 2 weeks to charge the batteries from dead to full on solar alone. You're basically buying yourself the full 28 kwh required capacity with the 4 solar panels and 2 power walls.

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If the batteries were just about dead when you plugged in at night and you wanted to recharge them while keeping the system running for 10 hours, you would need 2000 / 120 = 16.67 amps to run the computer, and 23.33 amps for 10 hours to charge the batteries. That's 2.8 kw for 10 hours to fully charge the battery, unfortunately, during grid charging, the powerwall charges at a max rate of 1.7 kw. That's 14.16 amps to charge the powerwalls. You would need to max out a 30 amp RV hookup site for a minimum of 16 hours to charge the batteries to last you one day.

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My suggestion, buy one of these, and carry enough gas to run it 24 hours a day.

https://www.amazon.com/Honda-EU3000iS-Starting-Portable-Inverter/dp/B0002XC0V2/

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EDIT: Final suggestion, rent a server and travel with a laptop that will allow you to remote in to the more powerful computer.

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Both of these devices will let you monitor how much energy your whole house is using, but the big thing about the Neurio device is it can supposedly detect which device is causing the spike in usage. As I understand from reviews it's a work in progress - it doesn't magically work out of the box, but you need to train it against your devices.

Non of these are going to magically help you save energy, I think you'd be better off just trying to figure out yourself what is using so much power (and put the money towards buying more energy efficient devices if you need to). If you want to measure how much power a device is using over a day, something like this will do (and even calculate the cost): https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00E945SJG

Your usage works out to be an average of 5kW which seems quite high (US average is about 1/10 of that) but without more details who knows. How big is your house? How many people live there? Do you have electric heating? AC on most of the year? A pool?

my biggest advice - try picking up an appliance power meter and running it on different applicances (especially TVs and washer/dryer) for a day at a time, this will tell you a lot about which appliances are using the most power and will almost certainly pay for itself when you can be more mindful of the biggest users. My suspicion is the electric dryer, especially if it's on the older side.

I would almost guarantee it's power related. Especially if you are mining Ethash etc. You will be amazed how different algos draw power. Ethash burns almost 30% more power on the same GPU as Crytponight. Get two of these outlet watt meters $14 each https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E945SJG/ref=sspa_dk_detail_4?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B00E945SJG&pd_rd_wg=QooCB&pd_rd_r=MM75D80Z5KP5PVS680GJ&pd_rd_w=pV3wH the best money you will spend. Put on each powersupply, remember that you really don't want to run more than 75% of the stated power. If you have 1000W don't pull more than 750-800 max and that is if you are using a top quality power supply. Make sure the power is spread equally, you may need to mix the power to the cards to balance out the power.

Okay let's use logic here, every part of the computer has been swapped or changed so we can eliminate the components from the equation.

3 things are left.

1. Peripherals.
   
2. Power to the computer (your house alternative current might fluctuate too much, try one of these)
   
3. Error 18. ^(error that happens 18 inches in front of the screen, (that means : You))
   
   Try with a different set of peripherals, clean instal using different keyboard, mouse and monitor.
   
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   Check the voltage that your outlet outputs into your PSU, I know these units are meant to regulate voltage and this should not be an issue but if it's too important of a variations, even for split seconds, it can damage/render unusable certain components.
   
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   Make sure you plug everything properly, motherboard 24pins are hard to plug in, make sure it's all the way in there.
   
   Standoffs behind motherboard? Proper power cables to graphics card? PSU strong enough to drive all components?
   
   Any overheating component ^(try) HWMonitor?
   
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   Maybe formatting isn't getting rid of a ferocious virus created by the lord of pain in the ass himself.
   
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   So many things can be at cause here, hope this helps, never stop trying you magnificent warrior, those 3 years weren't for nothing!
   
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   EDIT : My girlfriend mentioned : internet connection. try clean install offline and see if it only happens when online maybe ?

An Arduino Uno is an ATMega328p with header pins attached and a USB programmer.

If you don't know what you're doing, you really shouldn't be messing with mains power.

Here's a commercial power meter.

Here's a project where someone uses that for the purpose you've described.

You should use something like this https://www.amazon.com/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00E945SJG

Then you plugit in to the wall, and plug your rig to the power meter, then you can see how much watt your rig is using

Most hardware stores should have them. Or even Amazon. The kill a watt is a popular brand.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E945SJG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_d79GDbEETPCEW


Pretty cheap, very useful. It's going to be hard for you to just anecdotally measure. And your property manager is more likely to listen if you send in a problem stating "the fridge is averaging X kwh a day, which is Y kwh over what the manufacturer says is it's normal operating time"

Compra uma merda destas e vai percorrendo as tomadas da tua casa todas até encontrares o que é responsável pelo consumo elevado. Se não é a pelas tomadas é pelas lâmpadas. Algo aí está a gastar um exagero de energia desnecessariamente.

Yes, I'm talking about watts in both situations. I have a meter similar to this one
https://www.amazon.com/d/Industrial-Power-Meters/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/B00E945SJG

You can get a watt meter that plugs into the outlet and you plug your PC into that and it will tell you real time how much your PC is drawing.

https://www.amazon.com/d/Industrial-Power-Meters/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/B00E945SJG

When you say "safety fuse", is this something in your PC or something in your home?

If it's something in your home, you should get one of these to test what your computer is drawing from the wall: https://www.amazon.com/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00E945SJG

It's possible that your drawing too many amps from the wall.

For ~12-15 bucks you can see how much stuff really uses.

Just buy something like this

> It's 40 more watts on an overclocked R9 390. Most overclocked GTX 970s will exceed 210 watts when overclocked. Your "30-40%" number is a gross hyperbole, as 40w is actually 19% out of 210w.

Ok so now you are using overclocked cards, your efficiency goes down the drain if you overclock past a certain point.
Let's compare the numbers for factory overclocks on average gaming power draw:
 

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/25.html
MSI GTX 970: 168W vs R9 290 in the same test: 239W -> 42.3%

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_390_Nitro/21.html
Here is an Sapphire R9 390 Nitro: 261W vs 168W for the MSI 970 -> 55.4%

 

We could compare maximum power draw instead of average but that doesn't really help your case:
MSI 970 213W vs Sapphire 390 365W -> 71.4%

 

Let's look at a slower clocked R9 390:
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/R9_390_PCS_Plus/28.html
Average gameing power draw 231W vs 168W for the MSI 970 -> 37.5%

So I would not call that hyperbole, I would call that me being generous with the numbers ;).

> One, it can vary based on the displays used (of which they do not disclose), resolution, refresh rate, ect. There is not nearly enough data to call this an issue and not even the review you linked itself goes as far as to call it that because there simply isn't enough data.

How about that data, I, me personally have 3 different monitors, 3 different resolutions.
I usually don't throw away all my monitors and replace all of them, I usually upgrade one at a time.
I bet a lot of people use their old monitor as a secondary when upgrading, so they measure this power draws scenario for a reason.
Anyways, in my case the Sapphire R9 390 drew almost 90W when "idle" my MSI 970 draws about 16W.
It's night and day difference in noise and heat output. That R9 pulls more idle than my i7 at max torture load.

 

> This doesn't really prove anything. I've had loud GTX 970s and loud R9 390s. The only thing it proves is that some designs are better than others.

While I generally agree that this does not universally prove anything, keep in mind that all the 3 cards I tested have exceptional cooling solutions.
I run a silent PC that is almost inaudible if idle, and because I work 8 hours a day using this PC that's important to me personally. I choose those cards for a reason.
My case is not an ideal scenario for a high power card because the ventilation is limited (only 1 input fan on low RPM on idle + case is noise isolated does not have a lot of open air vents).

Still my scenario especially shows how much heat a card puts into a case because I like to keep the ventilation (noise) to a minimum.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_390_Nitro/22.html
The Sapphire Nitro is a fantastic R9 variant.
0db when "idle" like the MSI 970 (which is why the Sapphire 390 was my first choice and the first card I tested as an upgrade in my current system).
Unfortunately in my case the card never really is "idle" because of the 3 monitors.
Like I said before, the gaming noise wasn't bad at all. The extra noise this card produces in my scenario is mostly due to the excess heat my case fans have to get out of my case.
Again I wouldn't really mind the noise level during gaming, or the extra power draw in that situation.
What killed this particular card for me was the idle power draw with my 3 monitors.

 

> Where are you even getting these numbers from? Every review I have seen has R9 390s at under 10w during idle.

I have something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00E945SJG
I measured my system power draw with my iGPU vs the power draw with the R9 390. Difference was almost 90w with all monitors attached.
This test has the R9 390 at 71 W idle with multiple monitors attached:
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_390_Nitro/21.html
I gladly admit that my measurement might not be super accurate and something like +-5W inaccuracy of measurement is possible.
I only had two monitors attached to the iGPU because it only has two connectors ;).
If you want we can call it 70W at idle with multiple monitors.

 

> Just going to point out that there are R9 390s with fans that don't turn on until 76c as well....

Yes and the Sapphire I tested is one of them. Sadly the card does not stay under 76 due to the power draw ;).
If I only had one monitor, or if they would fix the multi monitor issue,
the Sapphire 390 would be the better card compared e.g. with my 970.
If you don't mind the extra heat and electricity bill. (which is reasonable if you don't game that much or live where electricity is cheap).

 

> No one here was arguing otherwise but there is only so many shits that can be given about power consumption. If I wanted to worry about power usage I would buy a Nintendo switch.

Well this whole thread started when I addressed the claim of "AMD sucks because they run hot!!!!!!!1!".
If you care about power draw depends on where you live. Where I live, with my usage scenario (at least 8 hours a day drawing ~70 extra watts).
The extra cost of running the Sapphire 390 is 146kWh per year or roughly 40€ a year.
Let's assume you use your card for at least 2-3 years so that's 80-120€ extra cost.
That was the extra cost of a 980 back when I was looking for a new card. The 390 would lose that duel.
I realize, that if you live in the US or somewhere with low energy cost, the difference is much lower. (The national average was 12.99 cents per kwh).
$20 per year or 40-80$ for a 3 year period. Now if you remove the extra monitors, of if you only use the PC for gaming this will be even lower.
I'm fine with you not caring about it. I do.

 

> Low power consumption is nice, to a point. It stops becoming important when companies like Nvidia simply continue to cut down their die sizes to stave off performance improvements.

Whut? You cut down die size, because you can due to the 16nm process, to increase yield because that's how you make money. It's also more efficient :D.
Which is why Nvidia could improve perf/Watt immensely.
50% more efficient going from a 980Ti to a 1080Ti,
something like 70% more efficient going from a 970 to 1070,
up to 100% if you look the most favorable gains on the lower end.
On the other hand Vega 64 gives you barely more perf/Watt over a Fury X...

 

I don't agree that they starve off performance improvements. At least not unreasonably so.
Again, die size means profit. The smaller you can go while still improving performance the better.
Now if only AMD could bring a competitive card in the higher end... that would force Nvidia to give up more of their profits by cutting price or increasing die sizes again to stay competitive.
Again I came from an AMD card and I wanted to buy one again but I had to go with the 970.
Looking at Vega right now I have to say I'm not impressed yet.
Ryzen is a different story though, let's hope they can counter Intels next Hexacore line. Maybe I can go full AMD again, on my next machine.

 

My i7 3770 is starting to show its age, but only in some of my work tasks and the 970 is holding up surprisingly well at 1440p@60Hz during gaming.
I can probably wait for Zen 2, which should roughly come out around the same time as Volta and hopefully Navi is not too far away either.

Who knows, maybe by then AMD gets some support from the major deep learning frameworks, it looks like Vega would be a good card for that.

You can use a device like this:

https://www.amazon.ca/Display-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00E945SJG

Test each device plugged in and see if anything is using a high amount of electricity.

If you have budget left, I know I can find benchmarks of this online. But please buy a kill-a-watt to check the wattage your PC will output. Preferably when stress testing both the CPU and GPU with furmark, intel burn test, OCCT. You might be surprised at how little this system pulls from the wall. I estimate between 450-500W depending on how high your overclocks are.

I suggest windforce cards a lot and I am slightly afraid to suggest a 650W PSU despite the fact that the benchmarks show that 2 GTX970s pull 439 watts when in full stress. Add a 111-140 for the CPU and like 5 for the HDD/SSD and you get to a roudhly 550W.

The kill-a-watt can also be used for other stuff! So not a terrible buy, handy tool to have.

Some battery backups provide this built-in, otherwise you can get a plug that sits behind the battery backup in the elec socket and shows how much you are using. Like this here

You can't. You can rig up something and use an amp probe or buy a plug-in power meter but what you're asking for doesn't exist, at least not cheaply.

If you're averaging 2kW/h you might just need to find the source of that. Maybe get one of these guys and troubleshoot?

I bought a few of these power meters from AliExpress at about $12 each, but it took a while to get here.

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The voltage in Norway is 240v. I used a plug-in electricity meter (or plug load meter) to read the wattage & ampere.

• Here's one from Amazon
  
  
• Here's the exact one from a Norwegian store
  
  I'll update when the server is up and running.

I use outlet meter like this
https://www.amazon.com/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00E945SJG

that is most precise way to measure power, software solutions are not reliable

Everyone else commmented on the obvious toxic situation you are in. I am just gonna try to help you with a way to quatify how much electricity you are using.

https://www.amazon.com/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00E945SJG

plug this in, and then plug in what you want to measure. You can do some easy math and figure how much electricity anything uses and do some basic math to calculate how much that cost if you have an electric bill laying around.

I can say it's either a driver problem or a hardware problem - I know it sounds vague, but without taking a 1st hand look I can only speculate


doesn't help that you have 2 cards in your system by different manufacturers; you also say you noticed GPU % usage fluctuations


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can you get your hands on a power measuring unit gizmo?


I have a feeling that you might hit the limit on that PSU; I haven't yet found power specs for 290, but 2x 290X will draw 750W in full load at the wall


edit: according to this Guru 3D article, they recommend a 800W PSU as minimum


> AMD Radeon R9 290 Crossfire - On your average system the cards require you to have a 800 Watt power supply unit as minimum.

http://www.amazon.com/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00E945SJG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1463748772&sr=8-2&keywords=power+monitor

60 watt bulbs hardly touch the electric bill. Anything with motors is what kills your power bills.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E945SJG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_1WTKxbEMKP24B

Since the things you have plugged in don't generally change a whole lot, you could use something like a [plug in energy meter] (https://www.amazon.com/TS-836A-Energy-Voltage-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00E945SJG/) to measure those sorts of devices and a [clamp on amp meter] (https://www.amazon.com/Klein-Tools-CL200-Clamp-Temperature/dp/B003LDFVBG/) to measure the ones that don't. It is obviously not real time, but it'd be quite a bit cheaper than monitoring every circuit in real time. Once you know how much power your large appliances use, it isn't going to change. ;)

Honestly, i just use a Kill-a-wattVery similar to the one in the link.