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Cost to Run a 24/7 YouTube Stream With a Used Lenovo Tiny PC

A 15 W continuous load uses 10.8 kWh in a 30-day month. Calculate your Lenovo Tiny’s actual 24/7 streaming cost from measured wall power and your local electricity rate.

By DocumentaryTube Team 3 min read

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A used Lenovo Tiny PC’s electricity cost depends on its average power draw at the wall and your electricity tariff. For illustration, a continuous 15 W load uses 10.8 kWh in a 30-day month. At the U.S. Department of Energy’s illustrative federal-facility rate of $0.11/kWh, that is about $1.19 for the month—not a household-bill estimate or a guaranteed streaming cost.

Calculate the electricity cost for your own PC

Use average power measured at the wall, not the adapter’s maximum rating. First calculate energy use, then multiply by your local price per kilowatt-hour (kWh):

  • Energy (kWh) = average watts Ă· 1,000 Ă— hours operated
  • Electricity cost = energy (kWh) Ă— your price per kWh

For a 24/7 setup, use 720 hours for a 30-day month or 8,760 hours for a 365-day year. Replace the illustrative rate below with the rate on your bill.

Illustrative average load Energy used At $0.11/kWh
15 W, 30-day month 10.8 kWh $1.19 per month
15 W, 365-day year 131.4 kWh $14.45 per year

The $0.11/kWh figure is the U.S. Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program’s illustrative average price at federal facilities as of July 2024. It is not a residential tariff; use your own electricity price for a personal estimate. DOE FEMP computer energy-cost guidance.

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What a Lenovo Tiny might draw—and what remains unknown

ServeTheHome measured 12–15 W at idle at 120 V for its tested quad-core Lenovo ThinkCentre M920 Tiny in a 2020 review. That is a useful scale for one model, but it is not a Lenovo-wide specification and does not show the power used while encoding a live stream. The exact Tiny model, CPU, workload, and connected equipment all affect the result. ServeTheHome’s M920 Tiny review.

To get a meaningful estimate, measure the complete PC at the wall while it runs the stream you actually plan to use, and average over representative operation. If a monitor, capture device, or other equipment will remain on, measure those loads too and add them. Do not treat a brief peak reading as continuous consumption.

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Check whether the PC and connection can sustain the stream

A low electricity estimate does not establish that a particular used PC can encode continuously. YouTube’s recommended H.264 video bitrates include 5 Mbps for 1080p30 and 8 Mbps for 1080p60. Its live-encoder guidance also lists RTMP/RTMPS ingestion and H.264, H.265/HEVC, and AV1 options. These are YouTube ingestion settings, not proof that a specific CPU can handle a chosen resolution and frame rate. YouTube recommends testing and monitoring stream health. YouTube live encoder settings.

  • Run a test at the intended resolution and frame rate before relying on the machine for a continuous stream.
  • Check that the encoder can maintain the selected settings without interruptions.
  • Measure the PC’s wall draw during that test; idle draw is not a substitute for streaming draw.

YouTube recommends upload capacity with 20% headroom above the total stream bitrate and warns that a connectivity disruption can break a live stream. For example, a 5 Mbps stream calls for at least 6 Mbps of sustained upload capacity under that guidance. Test the actual connection and account for other devices sharing it. YouTube live streaming tips.

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Account for the full cost of keeping a stream online

The electricity calculation covers the measured equipment loads multiplied by your tariff. It does not establish a total operating cost: the PC model, streaming workload, peripherals, internet arrangement, and local electricity rate have not been specified. If comparing setups, compare their measured average wall watts under the intended stream, operating hours, electricity price, and whether the display is included.

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Or let it run in the cloud

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