Reduce The Running Costs Of Your PC!

Jul 06, 2016

Once you’ve bought it, the costs associated with running a fanless (or any other) PC are the power it uses, and any maintenance.

Power consumption of fanless PCs is always much lower than a regular laptop or desktop. Fitlet draws 4.5W – 10W and even our most powerful model, the Intense PC2 i7 draws just 6W – 24W.

Consider the power consumption of your application

There is still quite a range for power consumption, which depends on how hard the unit is working. As I highlighted in our article on power consumption, hardware power consumption is also a software issue. Efficient software requires fewer hardware resources and doesn’t work them as hard – reducing power consumption – we make recommendations in our previous post on how to do this.

IPC2i7 UK

When purchasing one of our PCs on our website, we offer different options – such as the Operating System – which help you select the most efficient software for your application.

If you really want to assess power consumption, you need to measure it while the PC is running your application. Cheap power monitors are available on Amazon – though we have never tried them ourselves. If you’re serious you should buy or rent a professional instrument.

Reduce maintenance costs by eliminating moving parts

The other regularly recurring cost is maintenance. If PCs are sited in remote locations and running unattended, it is an important issue. As discussed in our post on reliability, Fanless PCs are specifically designed to run 24x7 for years on end. CompuLab offer a five year guarantee – which implies that they expect the life of their products to be at least that.

Fanless PC and moving parts

Our fanless PC are design without moving parts to run 24x7 for years, which means they will last for longer and with less maintenance needed.

This is achieved by eliminating moving parts, especially the fan which not only sucks dust into the case where it can blanket components preventing cooling, but also can wear out leading to overheating. If you’re using a PC with a fan, you really do need to ensure that it is regularly inspected to ensure continued reliable operation.


The reduction of the running cost of your PC represents a crucial factor for your application. Next is our Knowledge Centre Knowledge Centre - we will discuss how resistant a fanless PC can be.