How many pc's can you hook up to the mains power?

[szukalski]

Like the title says, how many pc's can we connect up to the mains power before we start having issues?

What we want to do is organise a LAN at a friend's place with up to 8 persons, all with moderately powerful machines.
Who has had experience with this sort of scenario?
Reckon we'd be alright with that amount of current drawn?

Thanks,

Dave

[Mr. Tinker]

You can start by finding out what outlets are on what breakers, and how much current each breaker can handle.

[szukalski]

Awesome, we have a start heh.
Thanks for that, it's at a mate's place so we'll have a look tonight after work.

We're in NZ w/ 230W lines if that makes any difference.

[Qkjhfhaiguihfma]

i have a 20 amp (110v) line that runs into my basement, and have had 4 pcs running on it, along with 2 crts, an lcd, and a few other small things.

i have never had any issues.

when we lan at my friends garage, we have had 10+ pcs and CRTs split across two circuits. No issues

[kiwi]

It depends what kind of fuse you have. I know that I have 20A 500V one, so the total maximum for my house would be 20 x 500 = 10,000W. And average PC with CRT monitor takes some 400-500 watts.

[TMM]

a typical PC would be only about 250w under load, max (unless your running a crazy SLI config with dual, dual-core P4-EE's or something :D) and a CRT monitor is under 100w afaik... 300w is probably more realistic.

[Rukee]

I have 4 machines, router, switchs, a hub, monitor, speakers everything run to one large outdoor extention cord running dirrectly to the fuse box on a 20 amp fuse in the basement. That way the computers stuff isn`t running off the old house wiring. No issuses at all, untill I run the A/C on that line too, then once and awhile it`ll blow the power strip I have them all connected to. :o

[szukalski]

Thanks for all the input guys, we're still trying to wrap our heads round this one.
It may have to be a case of connecting everything up and seeing if it blows lol.

[craig588]

I have been able to reset a 15 amp breaker with a a 1/3HP compressor, a 1HP compressor 2 monitors, 2 computers, some audio equipment and a TV. I have senice upgraded to 40 amps. I have put 4 computers, 3 monitors, a TV, 3 1HP compressors on it and reset it, there might have been another 1/2 HP compressor in there too, I can't remember.

There might have been a few other little things on those circuts too, like VCRs, clocks, and game consoles, I don't keep track of how they are loaded too carefully.