Power disaster!

Returned from holiday today to discover a surprisingly high reading on the Efergy over the past week. Each day was approximately 5kWh. 5kWh equates to 208w/hour which, given that most things were off, was high.

Then the culprit became apparent. The media center computer power supply had failed - it was still drawing power (and lighting up the blue light on the front of the computer), but no longer correctly powering the computer. It therefore had not turned itself off for much of the holiday (I tracked it down to failing last Sunday 10th, late in the evening).

Apart from losing a lot of TV recordings, it was continually drawing some power (I do not know how much) for a whole week.

Over the holiday, the only items left on were the router (to allow the media center to download guide listings), 2 devolo units, answerphone, fridge/freezer and the chest freezer. Apart from a small amount of lighting which the neighbour would have used to feed the cat, that was it.

So, I haven't managed to find out what the background usage is (well, unless you take 35kWh for a week as it, but I don't believe it is if things were to operate correctly).

This means I need to get a new power supply for the media center PC, well, almost. Because the media center PC was more important than my desktop machine (as it was being replaced), I pulled the item out of that machine and at least got the media center playing again.

Tomorrow I'll need to get a new power supply for my desktop, as that requires a modern-ish one. Given that my new desktop (44w max load) will arrive before the end of the month, I will chose carefully as this power supply will really be for my wife's machine.