Phantom Power Draw
 

I listened to a radio program recently discussing the impact of "Phantom Load" on the electricity grid. Small amounts of electricity are constantly being consumed by devices that are plugged in but appear to be shut off. These "sleeping" devices constantly draw power from the grid, twenty four hours per day, seven days per week. With more and more high-tech devices becoming commonplace among modern homes, this load continues to increase. Being a geek and PC enthusiast at heart, I suspected more to the electric load in my energy efficient home than just compact fluorescent bulbs. I was really intrigued by the thought of this and decided to conduct some testing of my own.

http://icrontic.com/articles/phantom_power

yup, I cut electricity to the whole HT setup two, saves close to 100W

14-16w for PCs turned off?? First thing I checked was mine when I got a P3 power meter... my "monster" rig only draws a single watt when turned off. Worst case its been able to hit an average of 600w, peak of 620w. I have a second PC, E6300, 8600GT, light stuff. PC idle/loads at 100/151w, and off it consumes 2w.

Turning off the almost always unused "Wake on ring", "USB wake from sleep", "Wake from LAN", and a all of the other "wake on" BIOS power options will easily bring the power consumed to near zero.

it depends on the PC and on the PSU; I've found PC using 21W turned off (note: not the PSU itself turned off) also 1~2W but that's more exception than rule. Most PSU/PC combo's I've encountered are between 15-25W.

What about the PSU would cause that? Just cheap design, or would Active PFC have any effect on this?

My systems use a PC Power & Cooling and a Antec NeoHE PSU... both units are very well rated as far as efficiency goes, so I can accept not all PSUs are as efficient. One PC is 975x, the other is in my sig. But 20w is still a good deal of power draw for a "off" system! 2watts verses 20watts, that's a sizable difference.

the standby 5v usb can draw power; one unit is Silverstone 300W passive, other FSP 400W passive, 500W Coolermaster, 550W Coolermaster, 540W Chieftec, 340W Chieftec, and more... from the list 550W from CM gives 0W when turned off, other I need to switch to "OFF" to drop to 0W.