500W university room power rating

[Sinizter]

I dont think its a problem. I ran 8 PCs + laptops, in addition to my fridge and kettle, router, assorted crap in my room. I had 17 sockets coming out of one wall socket by chaining together extension leads and they all worked.

All my extension leads did have their little thingy which tripped if you pulled too much current through it.

I think they are just trying to be cautious and you would blow up anything if you plug in something more powerful.

[megajames]

Thanks for everyone's help - looks like I should probably get a cheap laptop (with some security measures) for lectures, and spend most of my money on a good desktop, using the PSU calculator and other measures to double-check its power consumption, even though it looks like it'll be fine anyway. Gaming laptops don't look like the way to go for me, especially on a tight budget.