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Question about power usage

G

gnarlyeggs

Newbie
I have been having some issues with TV flickering when playing on my playstation3. What can be done to combat this?

In one room, I have a gaming PC with an 800w psu, a 5.1 surround sound on it, and a 24" monitor. I also have a 42" LCD Tv, ps3, and cable box. I have a decent size mini fridge in the same room too.

What I have notices is when the fridge turns on, the TV will flicker some times. Am I drawing to much power in the room?

EDIT: I used to have a 32" tv here. I did not notice this issue until after I upgraded to the 42"
 
Most likely - try moving the fridge to another room temporarily and seeing if it still happens.
 
Do you know the power rating on your 'mini-frig'? There's a wide range of mini-frigs, having a wide range of power ratings. Is it an older or newer model? Most don't really have high power ratings, but the inrush current on the compressor when it first kicks in will be about 5 times it's operating current (for a very brief time, so in effect a current spike/surge)

My guess is that it's more a problem with the noise generated by the compressor motor when it kicks on. That could be remedied with a decent surge supressing power strip. Some tvs (and devices in general), just have better filtering of input power to avoid this types of problems.

Most devices rarely draw anywhere near their rated power under normal use, so I doubt you're anywhere near your circuit's power limit (assuming it's a typical 20amp breaker)
 
Even with all that other equipment, all being on the same circuit, you think he's not edging close to 20A?
 
Most devices don't draw anywhere near their rated power under normal usage. Many will actually never draw anywhere near their rated power under even extreme usage.

Maybe if he had his PC running Prime95, Folding@home, and playing a game, while his PS3 was playing a game on the tv with it's volume maxed, and his surround sound system running at max volume, he may come close to tripping the breaker when the frig compressor kicks in, but I think that's fairly unlikely. Under normal usage though, that circuit probably never draws more than a max of about 1500W at any given time.
 
Makes sense. If his PSU was pulling a full third of the current from his circuit then he'd also be running hot as heck, and even with OCing and such you're right - the CPU utilization would have to be above 90% continuous to get close.

I wasn't thinking about actual current draw versus rated draw lol. Thanks for reminding me.
 
I had the same concerns years ago with my media room setup. Thought about adding a second circuit to the room, and an electrician friend told me I was probably fine, but if I wanted to verify, there were watt meters out there you could buy that would allow you to measure the actual power draw of any device (or devices if put on a power strip) real time.

So I bought myself a killawatt meter:Newegg.com - P3 Kill A Watt Electricity Load Meter and Monitor

Haven't used it in a long time, but from what I remember, my 600W computer, while playing a game, wasn't even drawing 300W. I should probably test out my current setup just out of curiosity... And what I found on most other devices was they drew well below their power ratings, typically around half what their spec said. The only thing that came close was my AC unit.
 
This happens to me all the time -- I keep my AC and computer on different circuit breakers.

Granted the electricity in part of the house I'm in is very very old and not really comparable to most modern houses.
 
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