Increased idle system power consumption

korsan · Post by **korsan** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 3:09 pm

Hi,
My idle system power consumption has increased with almost 30 watts!

A couple of months ago It was around 74 watts and now its idling at 106 watts.
(I haven't changed anything to my system)
To test, I replaced my Earthwatts 380w PSU with the same PSU from my 2nd PC. Result=same
Tried with another new Watt-meter. Result=same
Reset the bios to default settings. Result=same
Did a fresh install of Windows on another Harddisk. Result=same
Booted without the Ati x1300 Pro video card. Result=decrease of 18 watts (this is normal)
All temps are OK
Itâ€™s very strange, I donâ€™t know whatâ€™s causing the problem.
Now I think that the CPU(C2D e6300) or the mobo (msi p965 neo) maybe are the problem.
But I have no other mobo/cpu to test, because the second PC is an Amd
I'm looking forward to your advice.

tehfire · Post by **tehfire** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 4:25 pm

Any chance that the computer is not activating EIST/C1E? I'd check with CPU-Z to make sure the computer is dropping down when idle...

korsan · Post by **korsan** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 2:39 am

EIST and C1E support are both enabled in the bios.
When idle, the cpu voltage is 1.168V

ghettojiggalo · Post by **ghettojiggalo** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 2:00 pm

i had a similar problem. while idle-ing, my seasonic power meter would spike about 30watts, it drove me crazy and i was dead sure the cause was ati drivers. after some careful inspector gadgeting, turns out the culprit was google desktop...it would start indexing while my system was idle and only stops when i'm mousing around.

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:34 pm

ghettojiggalo is right - it's either some program indexing the drives all the time while system is in idle (vista does that too sometimes, btw); the screensaver is on while idle; or you might have gotten some virus or spyware in the system.