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10-27-2009, 10:08 AM
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#1
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Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: summit, nj
Posts: 19
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Tivo power consumtion
I am trying to make my house green and things that run all the time and consume power are huge offenders. I found my TIVO Series 3 consumes 100Whatts all the time! I can light my whole house with that. Now I need to add a second external drive OUCH!
Anyhow how can I cut this, should I be putting my TIVO into sleep mode. I only use it and record between 6pm and 1 am every day. Is there a way I can just shut it down the rest of the time? I supect if I put it on a timer it would crash the drive all the time and that wouldn't be good.
Any sugestions out there.
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10-27-2009, 11:11 AM
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#2
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Cranky old novice
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Near Dayton, Ohio
Posts: 5,061
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Quote:
Originally Posted by programmergeek
I am trying to make my house green and things that run all the time and consume power are huge offenders. I found my TIVO Series 3 consumes 100Whatts all the time! I can light my whole house with that. Now I need to add a second external drive OUCH!
Anyhow how can I cut this, should I be putting my TIVO into sleep mode. I only use it and record between 6pm and 1 am every day. Is there a way I can just shut it down the rest of the time? I supect if I put it on a timer it would crash the drive all the time and that wouldn't be good.
Any sugestions out there.
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Have you actually measured consumption?
Most reports are 32 to 40 watts for a TiVo HD, for example: this. The expander drive will increase it of course, and reduce reliability. Expanding the internal drive to at least 1 TB is a better approach, and won't significantly increase power consumption.
We pay $0.11 per kwh so 40 watts is $38.57 per year -- not worth too much agonizing about.
You can unplug a TiVo without any bad effects -- it's designed that way since it can't be allowed to get messed up by power outages. However, power cycling hard disk drives is not a good policy from a lifetime point of view, and hard disk failure is the most common TiVo failure.
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10-27-2009, 11:12 AM
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#3
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Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: DC Metro Area
Posts: 7,902
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A 100w power supply does not mean the product uses 100 watts.
I don't know what you're using to monitor power consumption, but a stock TivoHD uses closer to 34 watts. The discontinued TiVo Series3 uses a few watts more.
Prior to a drive upgrade, my TivoHD reported 34 watts with a Kill A Watt and the Brand Electronics 4-1850.
Last edited by bkdtv : 10-29-2009 at 01:51 PM.
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10-27-2009, 11:49 AM
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#4
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Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: summit, nj
Posts: 19
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sorry it is a HD XL I plugged in a kw meter and it said 100W. I can increase the internal drive to 2TB but htat takes some doing and I am not sure I want to mess with it so I just got a external. Maybe I need to measure over time. Power here is .17 kwhr
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10-27-2009, 12:00 PM
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#5
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Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: DC Metro Area
Posts: 7,902
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Quote:
Originally Posted by programmergeek
sorry it is a HD XL I plugged in a kw meter and it said 100W. I can increase the internal drive to 2TB but htat takes some doing and I am not sure I want to mess with it so I just got a external. Maybe I need to measure over time. Power here is .17 kwhr
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I don't know what meter you're using, but it clearly isn't accurate.
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10-27-2009, 12:11 PM
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#6
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Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: summit, nj
Posts: 19
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I'll have to reviset it maybe there was something else on standby, I just was shocked when I saw it.
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10-27-2009, 01:43 PM
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#7
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TiVo HD
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 404
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I've also measured my Tivo HD at about 34 watts.
And if you are looking to minimize power consumption of your display, you might want to grab a DLP rear projection TV while you still can. They tend to use less power than LCD or plasma. For example, my 56" set from a few years ago measures about 145 watts. If you prefer flat panel, then LED backlit LCD is the lowest power consumer.
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10-27-2009, 06:55 PM
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#8
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Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Tualatin, Oregon
Posts: 1,534
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Quote:
Originally Posted by programmergeek
sorry it is a HD XL I plugged in a kw meter and it said 100W.
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The "cheap" power meters are relatively inaccurate at low power consumption levels. But, as has been pointed out in this thread, other people have been reporting much lower numbers than you have seen. So I suspect your meter is an "outlier" and/or "broken".
FWIW I have my TiVo HD (and other stuff) on a APC UPS that reports load in watts. My TiVo is also reported as drawing about 40 watts. The reason the "other stuff" is significant is that, even if the APC suffers from the same inaccuracy at low power levels as other cheap meters, I'm measuring at a slightly better point in accuracy. I.e. I'm measuring 100 vs 140 watts, not 0 vs 40 watts.
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10-28-2009, 07:07 PM
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#9
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Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 18
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Just checked with Kill a watt
32 watts for the TivoHD
11 watts for the 1TB expander
Cause I was curious:
38 watts for a Motorola HD STB
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10-28-2009, 07:57 PM
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#10
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Cranky old novice
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Near Dayton, Ohio
Posts: 5,061
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Quote:
Originally Posted by programmergeek
I'll have to reviset it maybe there was something else on standby, I just was shocked when I saw it.
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Well if you were shocked, clearly your body was drawing some current that increased your measurement!  (Sorry couldn't resist.)
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10-29-2009, 06:28 AM
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#11
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Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Houston
Posts: 1,572
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Replacing the stock 160 drive in a Tivo HD with a WD green drive will increase capacity to 1TB and lower consumption. My TivoHD measures 28w.
Desktop pcs that run 24/7 are big offenders. We saved enough on electric to replace my wifes desktop with a laptop that is faster.
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