lol, lee, I dredged this up from 450+ days ago, I brought it back to life to help administrator figure out his best option. I don't even know if the OP is alive or dead, active or not active. Post away.

Lee, No. It is more of a research / curiosity thread.

appologies, in that case i'll refrain from posting untill i've read the whole thread :)

No problem. :-)

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Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station. - Grand Moff Tarkin

How did you lose 27 systems???

I asked the same thing. I'll let him elaborate himself it he wants.. but.. apparently just a huge electrical storm a couple days ago.

That's *through* surge protectors and some were hooked up to an UPS too.

The strangest thing I ever saw: lightning strike caused a surge, surge came through the power line, through the power supply, across the motherboard and killed the disk controller.

.... or maybe down the phone line, through the modem, through the serial port across the motherboard and killed the disk controller.

I know it was lightning, I was 3 feet from the computer, on my way to unplug it from everything.

... and I replaced the disk controller and everything ran.

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...I know it was lightning, I was 3 feet from the computer, on my way to unplug it from everything.

... and I replaced the disk controller and everything ran.

Sometimes you just get lucky.
Minor surge, but enough to cause damage. Luckily something dies & takes the brunt of it & everything else comes through unscathed.

Many times we've had a unit come into the workshop that's had the stuffing blown out of it, but nothing else connected to the same curcuit or even the same power point & double adaptor, was damaged.

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Grant
Darwin NT

firstly i'll appologise because i've not read the entire thread, but i'll just say that if people are commenting on power comsumption as a negative thing, lets keep things in perspective

I'm not sure what people were thinking above, but, I think this is more on topic than where the thread's gone the last dozen posts or so.

the amount of power unused transformers (switched on, but the device which needs the transformer is off or not in use, things like leaving electronics on "standby") use is obscene, and much much more than our computers (i saw some hard numbers once, but can't remember the URL for the data)

Didn't know that, I thought it was the exact opposite. I figured, it's not doing anything, it's barely costing anything. Doesn't really apply much to computers or to the "added cost of running BOINC" part, but for VCRs, DVD players, recievers, stereos, etc.. they're often more or less designed to stay on all the time, doing anything or not. Recievers in particular.

now these transformers are useless when their associated device is off/not in usewhere as an active PC crunching for BOINC is doing something very useful (rather than just idling)

Well that is one thing we discussed below. If your computer is on, it's probably using, say, 150 watts. Not doing anything, CPU usage at zero, and so on.. 150 watts. To max out that CPU, maybe another 40 or 50 watts. So, you're sure not *adding* 200 watts to run BOINC if your computer would be on anyway, you're only adding 50 watts.

also in the interests of saving things, the greatest cost to the environment is in the manufacture and disposal of PCs and because with most PC hardware (the monitor is the main exception) suffers from thermal stress more than it will from wearout, it's actually more benificial environmentally to leave them on all the time (they'll last longer)

Hrm. Also interesting, but, that's in a different direction. I/we/the revival of this thread is more looking at this from a business or cost perspective, not a save-the-world perspective.

Consider that most people use their computer, oh, 2 hours a day. To leave it on for that other 22 hours costs ... 0.150KW * 22h = 3.3KWh. At $0.10/KWh that's $0.33/day. That's $10/month. So, sure, it makes it die sooner. And from an environmental perspective weighing landfill waste above electricity production (coal stripmining/uranium decomposition/whatever, smog from burning, and so on).. it might make sense. But, that's $120/year, conservatively. If it will make your components die in, what, 5 years instead of 6 years.. that's $600 you spend keeping it on, to not have it die. The value difference of those old components after 6 years as compared to after 5 years, is much much much less than $600.

At 8 hours a day instead of 22, that's only $43/year, or $215 after 5 years. That starts to make sense to leave it on.

In most circumstances though, I don't think it will come into play. I think most people throw away their computers before components actually break down or are near to it. Servers being an exception.

also "power saving" features don't help because that increases thermal stress too (hardware being turned on and off lots) and also to start up say a hard drive, takes a fair bit of power, it's more efficient to keep it running

Yep, for a short period. Not for a longer period. (Obviously, if you're going to turn it on once a month, you're not saving power by leaving it on. If you're turning it on and off every 10 minutes, then obviously you are). So it depends on the situation.

It takes *some* more, but, I think it catches up pretty quick. Just like it takes more energy to start your car, but, it's actually cheaper gas-wise to shut your car off and restart it if the gap is 30 seconds or more. With computers, I think it's somewhere in the 15-30 minute range, depending on startup crap.

i'm not saying everyone should or shouldn't do certain things, or change their habits, i'm just pointing out some facts, some of which aren't obvious

Nope, that was all good stuff in my opinion.

...

And, on the slightly offtopic storytellingness.. I've actually been struck by lightning. Or rather, our car was when I was a kid. So, obviously almost none of it went through me, it went through the car body, I barely felt it. It was at night, and the flashed image of the lightning bolt burned into my dad's eyes so bad he had to pull over for 20 minutes for it to fade.

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I/we/the revival of this thread is more looking at this from a business or cost perspective, not a save-the-world perspective.

Other than servers, computers don't make that much of an impact on a businesses power usage. Heating/airconditioning & lighting are the big ticket items.

And, on the slightly offtopic storytellingness.. I've actually been struck by lightning. Or rather, our car was when I was a kid. So, obviously almost none of it went through me, it went through the car body, I barely felt it. It was at night, and the flashed image of the lightning bolt burned into my dad's eyes so bad he had to pull over for 20 minutes for it to fade.

Yep, you were effectively in a Faraday cage. It went through the cage & not yourself.

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Grant
Darwin NT

> 17 'puters.... 40 watts each....
>
> I'M BLIND! I'M BLIND
>

Doing science for SETI and heating your home :D

But Summer is comming, have to find new physics whare heat will cool the home.