[SOLVED] PC consuming 200+ W on IDLE!

lmsrcmig06

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Jan 5, 2017
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Hello! I built my new gaming PC around May, having switched and replaced every single part of it since then due to technical problems that randomly solved themselves?
Anyways, it´s nothing more than an AMD Ryzen 5 1600, a Gigabyte AX370-Gaming 5, a MSI Radeon RX 480 8GB Armor OC, Corsair Veangeance LPX Red 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) 3000 MHz C15, Team L5 Lite 3D 480 GB SSD and a Corsair CX650M.
The problem is that the PC consumes from 180 to 230 W on IDLE, being it on the desktop 30 minutes after booting or in the UEFI. All of this is measured via a brand new Perel wall power meter, wich is something great I bought for 20 bucks two weeks ago.
Previously, I remember it staying at 90-100 W, but now its more than double.
I have tried changing everything in the UEFI or in Windows to no avail.
Afterburner shows the CPU consuming 20 W and the GPU consuming another 20 W, totalling around 50 W total for them both. Do the other parts really consume 150 W? That'd be extremely odd and it's problably not the PSU, as it only started today and the PSU is only 2 years old.
If asked, I can test it with my RM1000i I have sitting at home from a RMA due to the reason in the first sentence, but I'm not keen on opening it as it'd lose sale value and I already lost too much on replacements.

This is a really strange problem, just like the ones I already had on this, my first ever personal gaming PC, wich has been nothing but frustration.

I really hope someone can help me out. Thanks!
 
Solution
Check CPU usage of individual processes with Resource Monitor. Click the Start menu, type resmon, and press Enter. Click on the CPU tab and then on the CPU column to sort by most usage on top and see what's eating up CPU power, if anything. If no clues there, start removing unnecessary peripherals and other non-essential components like extra fans, drives, ram modules, rgb, etc, one by one to see if something is being a power hog due to some defect or fault. Last resort, breadboard your computer - maybe there's a short to the pc case somewhere.

EDIT: Maybe your Perel Power meter is displaying Line Voltage instead of Watts (that's probably it right there)
I A M S O D U M B !

Resource Monitor...
Check CPU usage of individual processes with Resource Monitor. Click the Start menu, type resmon, and press Enter. Click on the CPU tab and then on the CPU column to sort by most usage on top and see what's eating up CPU power, if anything. If no clues there, start removing unnecessary peripherals and other non-essential components like extra fans, drives, ram modules, rgb, etc, one by one to see if something is being a power hog due to some defect or fault. Last resort, breadboard your computer - maybe there's a short to the pc case somewhere.

EDIT: Maybe your Perel Power meter is displaying Line Voltage instead of Watts (that's probably it right there)
 
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I would check your GPU, an RX480 can draw up to 300W under full load.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-480-polaris-10,4616-9.html
So if something is causing it to clock up it could easily be drawing an extra 90 or 100 watts.
And as stated above your 1600 (even though it is a 65W CPU) could easily draw 90 W if it is being fully loaded.

Since you stated that you have a spare PSU, I personally would change out the PSU just to rule out the current PSU as the cause.
 
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I would check your GPU, an RX480 can draw up to 300W under full load.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-480-polaris-10,4616-9.html
So if something is causing it to clock up it could easily be drawing an extra 90 or 100 watts.
And as stated above your 1600 (even though it is a 65W CPU) could easily draw 90 W if it is being fully loaded.

Since you stated that you have a spare PSU, I personally would change out the PSU just to rule out the current PSU as the cause.
At idle, Afterburner or any other monitoring tool says both the CPU and GPU are consuming around 20 W each, totalling around 50 W. The only thing I see, wich has been like this even before this problem, is the memory being always at full speed (2000 MHz), but that shouldn't be the problem for the reason above. As a last resort, I'm going to change my PSU if I can't solve it with anything else.
Thanks for the help.
 
See my message from yesterday. Make sure that you are viewing Watts on your Perel Meter. It might be showing you Line Voltage instead and you are mistaking it for Watts. My Kill-a-watt meter defaults to Volts if unplugged and plugged back in again so I have to reselect Watts when this happens.
 
Check CPU usage of individual processes with Resource Monitor. Click the Start menu, type resmon, and press Enter. Click on the CPU tab and then on the CPU column to sort by most usage on top and see what's eating up CPU power, if anything. If no clues there, start removing unnecessary peripherals and other non-essential components like extra fans, drives, ram modules, rgb, etc, one by one to see if something is being a power hog due to some defect or fault. Last resort, breadboard your computer - maybe there's a short to the pc case somewhere.

EDIT: Maybe your Perel Power meter is displaying Line Voltage instead of Watts (that's probably it right there)
I A M S O D U M B !

Resource Monitor showed 1% usage at maximum, I had already removed the headset, keyboard and mouse, disconnected all of the 4 external fans, disabled all RGB, wich I have a lot of in my PC, but I still found no change.

I ended up resetting the Perel power meter, waited 10 seconds and now it shows my PC consuming 100 W instead of 250 W... What a shame...

Thank you all for the help!
 
Solution