Hey everyone, I recently built a small gaming PC with an i3-10100F and a GTX 1650, and since I started using it about a week ago, my power bill has skyrocketed from $6 a day to $13! I plugged it into a watt meter and it's showing 2.4 kWh of power usage, which seems really high for my setup. I'm worried something might be wrong with my PC—like I might blow something up! Can anyone help me figure out what's going on?
5 Answers
Are you sure that’s right? What’s the wattage of your power supply? A standard desktop with a 750-watt PSU should be consuming around 0.75 kWh at max load—definitely not above that.
If your PC was truly using that much power, the heat output would be insane, and you'd likely fry something. A typical rig like yours should max out around 300W. It’s worth checking your power supply too—it could be faulty. Only a malfunctioning PSU would cause issues like that, everything else would usually get too hot to handle.
I don't really get how to use Reddit that well, but I can share a video to show what's happening. My GPU temperatures seem normal, so I'm really confused by the watt meter.
A 2.4 kWh consumption seems impossible unless your power supply is extremely large. A good PSU should cut off if it starts overheating. Have you checked how your HVAC system is running? Since the hardware is simple, it's likely you’re paying for something else in your house too.
Honestly, I haven't even checked my HVAC! I'm not sure how to go about that.
If it really is a concern, just unplug the PC for a while and see if your bill changes next month. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best.
It sounds like you might be using the watt meter incorrectly. Remember, kWh is a measurement over time. If your PC has been on for about 120 hours since the 10th, it could have drawn an average of 9.6 watts continuously, which is actually pretty low for a desktop. Maybe double-check how you're measuring it? That could make a big difference!
Yeah, I'm definitely being charged more, so I'm not sure what's up.
I've got a maximum 600W PSU. I'm really baffled by what's going on, and it's hitting my bills hard.