The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    P-7811FX Power Consumption

    Discussion in 'Gateway and eMachines' started by choder, Dec 28, 2008.

  1. choder

    choder Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    18
    Messages:
    120
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    After reading the discussion on the Targus 180W power brick I decided I wanted to know how much power my 7811 was pulling at the wall. I figured a few of you guys might be interested in this kind of info, so I'm sharing :D

    Testing was done with my bone-stock 2888 model P-7811FX with a smooth power brick (ADP-120ZB) and a Kill-A-Watt. Note that these numbers represent how much power is being pulled from the wall, not how much the laptop is actually using. So if the power brick is 75% effcieint and pulls 100W at the wall socket, only 75W actually make it to the laptop. The other 25W are lost in the AC/DC conversion and radiated as heat from the power brick.

    I've made note of where the HDD activity level at each stage as I believe the HDD to be using a fair bit of power. I plan to rerun these tests with a different mix of drives (2x 7200rpm RAID, 5400rpm, SSD, SSD RAID (I wish :D)).

    Results:
    Power brick plugged into the wall, no laptop attached - 0W
    In the BIOS configuration screen - 50W
    Booting up (HDD activity high) - ~50-65W
    Sitting at the Login Screen (HDD activity low) - 40-45W
    Loading to Desktop (HDD activity high) - 45-65W
    Machine sitting idle at desktop (HDD activity low) - 45W
    Playing Fallout3 at 1920x1080 (HDD activity moderate) - 90-115W!!!
    Fallout3 paused by hitting Esc (HDD activity low) - 45-60W

    115 freaking watts is a lot for a laptop!
     
  2. tianxia

    tianxia kitty!!!

    Reputations:
    1,212
    Messages:
    2,612
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    not surprised, given the 9800m gts has a 75w tdp, it probably consumes at least 50w on itself.
     
  3. Diablo

    Diablo Metalhead

    Reputations:
    772
    Messages:
    1,471
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    which is why the targus power brick is the recommended go to if your original power brick hisses...stock power brick is only 120W...and as you can see, you can push that really close.
     
  4. mEatWad

    mEatWad Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    11
    Messages:
    128
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    pretty good if u ask me. considering desktop components, like a 8800gt or c2d each consume more power on their own. ok maybe the processor doesn't as much, but the 9800m gts comes pretty close to 8800gt performance for much less power consumption.
     
  5. choder

    choder Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    18
    Messages:
    120
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I can totally see where adding a 35W T9XXX CPU and another HDD would overwhelm the stock power brick. I guess I'll be getting the Targus 180W afterall :D