Quick tech note re PS3 power consumption —

The 40GB PS3’s should be consuming somewhere around 110 watts or so when running a game or Folding @ Home, and less than 1 watt when “shut down” by holding down the PS button and selecting “Turn off the system.” Do a long hold on that button by the way — a quick press of PS in game pops-up the XMB interface.

There is a mode that can be set so that your PSP can wake up the machine and connect to it, and that would probably consume a fair amount of power (don’t know how much, sorry), but if that mode isn’t turned on then shutdown power consumption should be close to zero.

Hopefully they didn’t remove it on the 40GB model (I have an older 60GB), but there is also a power switch on the back which can be used to turn the machine _completely_ off if desired. That will avoid actually having to unplug it to drop power consumption to zero.

Another power-saving tip — you can turn on a timeout for the controller so that it will automatically turn off after 10 minutes of not being used.