We have two iMacs in the house and I am wondering what the hourly power consumption is.
Never put the computers into sleep mode, don't know why we've never done this.
Curious as to what the energy consumption is per hour for a single iMac.
I'm sure I will alter the computers to go into sleep, but would like to know how much the saving is.
My rough calculation says that it's 12p per kWh.
On sleep they use very little power. There is a setting to make it sleep after X minutes, trivial to do. I usually let mine (mini) sleep as re-awake takes just a few seconds.
thanks
(You probabky know this)
System Preferences / Energy Saver
Computer Sleep, Display Sleep
I have sleep hardisks when possible and wake for network access on
I usually sleep the machine when done rather than shutdown
Mines set to turn the monitor off very quickly. 10minutes or so. I think it sleeps after an hour. I've also set one of the 'hot corners' to enable sleep mode so all I have to do is pop the pointer to bottom right on the screen and it sleeps instantly.
Thanks Peter, that sounds good.
They probably have a c.500w power supply so about 7p per hour when working quite hard, much less when idling.
Idle with screen off will be in the 5-15W range depending on vintage. Less on sleep obviously.
command-option-eject is the shortcut to sleep BTW.
command-option-eject is the shortcut to sleep BTW.
Thanks, 10 years of owning Mac Book / Mini and I never knew that - it works I had to try it of course 😳
I use mine to dry the laundry. It's like a small radiator at the back.
The maximum it can possibly draw is down to the wattage rating of it's PSU. But that's a theoretical maximum as it's never likely to go near that for day to day surfing and whatever.
If you're doing 3d animation and video encoding, it might get close.
The monitor also might use about 100w, so if both computer and monitor are powered down or at least go into a sleep mode when not in use I wouldn't worry.
In short, have a look at the power settings on both the computer settings and the monitor menu settings.
I have a pc, but it's set up to do no power saving at all unless theres no input for an hour, in which case, both monitor and pc switch themselves off.
And to address the question, it depends entirely on what the computer is doing.. having the screen on when idle is an obvious power saving opportunity, and if the computer is not really doing anything, it may as well be in some kind of sleep or hibernation mode. Or shut down completely, depending on preference.