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Questions tagged [power]

Electrical power is essential to the operation of any computer and any of its components or peripherals.

Electrical power is essential to the operation of any computer and any of its components or peripherals (collectively "device"). This tag should be used for questions involving:

  • a device not turning on
  • how to determine the correct type of cable, charger, AC adapter, or other part used to supply power to a device
  • how to get power to a device
  • the amount and/or type of power required by a device. Use
  • why a device isn't receiving power
1583 questions
147
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6 answers

What is the power output of a USB port?

As the title says, what's the power output of a USB port? Is it a standard value, or it may change depending on manufacturer/model, and so on? If that value is not standard, how can one determine it?
Sekhemty
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116
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5 answers

When do I need a pure sine wave UPS?

I would like to buy a rack UPS that would support all the IT related electronics in a SOHO room. This include switches, routers, PCs, servers, NAS. During my research I found out that there are different types of UPSs and the ones that generate pure…
totymedli
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107
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7 answers

How do I stop Windows 10 going to sleep after locking with Win+L key

I've got a Dell XPS 13 (9360) with Windows 10 Home. Steps to reproduce: Open power options (Win-X, O) Click change plan settings next to the current plan ("Dell" in my case) Set both "on battery" and "plugged in" change "Put the computer to sleep"…
Dave E
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70
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7 answers

Does a computer use more electricity when charging USB devices?

Something I've always wondered. If I constantly hook up cellphones, hard drives and the like via USB to my computer, will it eat up more on the electricity bill? Or are the USB ports using up electricity by just being enabled anyway, thus not…
arnehehe
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66
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9 answers

"Turn off router for 10 seconds" - Quantifiable?

Is there any quantifiable evidence to support power cycling routers for 10 seconds or any arbitrary amount of time, instead of just unplugging and plugging back in? This is related to troubleshooting a misbehaving router. The theory is based on…
cqm
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64
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11 answers

What happens when hardware tries to draw more power than power supply can provide?

As far as I understand, computers don't always draw the same amount of power from the power supply all the time. There are times when hard drives are on standby and not using as much as when they're spinning and graphics cards save power when not…
user1306322
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55
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6 answers

Are all power cords made equal?

Referring to this type of power cords that either attach directly to the PSU, or to a power adapter that powers the monitor or laptop. Is there anything to watch out for when swapping these cords, or do we only care about the adapter…
Automator_Enthusiast
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46
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14 answers

Is it safe to power on a motherboard outside of its case?

I have a new motherboard which needs a BIOS update to support a new CPU. Thankfully I have an old (compatible) CPU handy. My plan is to install the old CPU, update the BIOS, then install the new CPU. I'd prefer not to have to mount the motherboard…
misha256
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43
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10 answers

How much power does a hard drive use?

This is not as straight forward as it sounds. Specs from Western Digital's site for a WD 3TB Green Drive: Read/Write 6.00 Watts Idle 5.50 Watts Looks fine right? Look at this part of the spec: "12 VDC" and "Read/Write 1.78 A". It was a long time…
Jay Wen
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40
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13 answers

Can a power failure or forceful shutdown damage hardware?

Can computer hardware suffer damage from forceful shutdowns (holding the power button for five (5) seconds) or power failures? I believe that normal PC hardware does not suffer from this - after all, it's not much different than what they…
Vilx-
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39
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6 answers

I plugged in a molex cable the wrong way and the power supply exploded. Did it kill my hard drive?

I bought a cheap kit allowing me to use a 3.5 SATA hard drive with a laptop, by plugging it in with USB. It still requires external power supply so I used an adapter that came with this kit but I plugged it the wrong way - the molex cable has four…
jy196
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38
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14 answers

Where does power consumption go in a computer?

Today we had a weird discussion over lunch: What exactly causes power consumption in a computer, particularly in the CPU? (ETA: For obvious reasons I don't need an explanation why a hard drive, display or fans consume power – the effect there is…
Joey
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35
votes
7 answers

How can I force an internal hard drive to power on or off when I want?

Obviously there are power management settings which Windows uses to determine when to power a hard drive off, and when to power it back on again. Powered down I assume doesn't mean absolute zero power, but it does mean the disk stops spinning. I…
user31438
35
votes
5 answers

180W Laptop charged with 45W charger, is it dead?

My brother gave me a dead gaming laptop (Asus GL503V). He bought it on eBay some time ago but it died a couple of months after. A couple of days ago he gave it to me, and I noticed that the charger was relatively small considering the size of the…
Kakuhiry
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3 answers

Is it bad to leave your computer on during a thunderstorm?

Generally when I hear the crack of thunder, my PC goes off immediately. Today I'm working though, and wondered - how bad is it to leave it on? If the power goes out, will it kill it? I use a power strip - that protects it, right?
Simon Sheehan
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