Well it has been a fun 8 years crunching for seti, but because of the "cap and trade" bill which has passed the House and will result in the doubling in energy cost if it passes the Senate; I’ve decided to retire my rigs. All my rigs have been set not to accept new work units.

I have become increasingly concerned about the cost for electricity for crunching. With each machine drawing about 600 watts, which is about 55 bucks a month per rig, I’ve decided to quit ALL Distributed Computing project. I will use the money for other things, like maybe buying gas to get to work.

Good luck, hope you all make it into the top ten computers... my current rank is 58 at 21,680,072 credits!

PS, hope this will stop the polar ice caps from melting on Mars!

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Sad to hear this.
But maybe you will come back one day in future?

You will miss the noise of the fans! ;-)


If I don't hear the fans.. I miss something.. don't feel well.

For me it's also not easy.. for me really lot of my money gone to PCs and go to the electricity bill.
And I don't have big earnings.


Take care! :-)

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RM, dont crunch 24/7. You can save money, when you only crunch while your computers are on.

There is no need to leave Boinc.



PLEASE STAY

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...You can spend money...

Wouldn't that be "save" money? ;-)

Gruß,
Gundolf

Your contribution for project is awesome ! Crunch less, saving the power, but stay with project !

Best regards,

Jet

I hear your pain. Several years ago I got the crunching bug and kept adding rigs to my farm. Once my power bill got to over $1,200 a month I had to cut back. I still have my daily use computers crunching and a small farm of quads that I keep on various projects. But usally half of the farm or more is off. If it gets so hot that I need AC then it all goes off. Try cutting back instead of cutting off. Just my 3 cents worth.

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Years ago, when my electric bill passed $600 per month, I almost gave it up. Instead, decided to install solar panels on my roof. Now, I pay only $50 per month, even with my expanded seti farm. Even without number crunching, believe we all should be putting panels on our roofs. And, after 6 years, all the power generated is free, as the cost of the panels is now paid for.

And here I sit among you guys with my lil ol' desk top running one WU at a time hoping my window unit doesn't trip the breaker and kill my computer in the process!

Leave BOINC on your "daily driver" and turn it off and on as needed for your regular use.

Turn off the dedicated crunchers.

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Seems like the feelings of joy, pain and fear are the same all around the world. We all like to crunch, and suffer with the hardware and power bill costs. I cut my efforts and then came back later with all i got so many times on this 10 years. Maybe its because of the pain that we are a bit addicted on it? I don´t know...i am a bit addicted on other things aswell. Well some of them may cause cirrhose and kids, instead of melting of polar ice caps :)
But all of them cause me joy, pain and fear, so im pretty sure im addicted on SETI. Until the point im forced to pull back.

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Years ago, when my electric bill passed $600 per month, I almost gave it up. Instead, decided to install solar panels on my roof. Now, I pay only $50 per month, even with my expanded seti farm. Even without number crunching, believe we all should be putting panels on our roofs. And, after 6 years, all the power generated is free, as the cost of the panels is now paid for.

I would like to hear more about your solar panels. Cost, before and after tax credits; sqare feet of panels; etc. When I priced a solar installation 5 years ago it was not feasible (no pay off), Texas doesn't have state rebates, or power company rebates. I hear some states have up to three programs to help pay for the panels. But if solar can't stand on it's own why do it.

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But if solar can't stand on it's own why do it.

But think on this - you are switching off because the cost of power is going UP. The cost of solar installations has likely come down in the past 5 years (technology maturing, higher volumes now than 5 years ago, etc). Maybe it's time to redo the calculations?

F.

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You have had a remarkable run!
May you now use those hardware skills to help those around you. The work is very profitable and can bring a lot of personal satisfaction for an honest, low cost job well done.

Well it has been a fun 8 years crunching for seti, but because of the "cap and trade" bill which has passed the House and will result in the doubling in energy cost if it passes the Senate; I’ve decided to retire my rigs. All my rigs have been set not to accept new work units.

I have become increasingly concerned about the cost for electricity for crunching. With each machine drawing about 600 watts, which is about 55 bucks a month per rig, I’ve decided to quit ALL Distributed Computing project. I will use the money for other things, like maybe buying gas to get to work.

Good luck, hope you all make it into the top ten computers... my current rank is 58 at 21,680,072 credits!

PS, hope this will stop the polar ice caps from melting on Mars!

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Overclock with the MSI G31M3-L and Intel E8600 3.33Ghz
Intel D865GLC Socket 478 Motherboard
~How To Overclock The Eee ASUS 1005HA Netbook To 1.9Ghz~

But if solar can't stand on it's own why do it.

But think on this - you are switching off because the cost of power is going UP. The cost of solar installations has likely come down in the past 5 years (technology maturing, higher volumes now than 5 years ago, etc). Maybe it's time to redo the calculations?

F.

It'd be very interesting to put up 250w or so of panels, an appropriate DC power supply, maybe some batteries, and the appropriate circuitry to power down when the voltage went away (like a UPS does) and see what one could do without any connection to the grid at all.

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RottenMutt, I know how you feel. Since AP ran out I've been shutting down my farm. All but two are now getting a deserved rest. I've been crunching for 10 years and never thought I'd ever shut down. The direction our country is heading that little extra money might come in handy sooner than later.

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http://www.teamstarfire.org/

I can certainly appreciate the cost of the power that a serious farm consumes. Thats just one of the reasons that SETI does distributed conmputing. Even if they had the budget to build a serious cluster, and the aircon to cool it, they still have to pay the power bill.

This way the power bill is spread out over 100,000 people, who donate what they wish.

Maybe you have been donating more than you can afford?

If you just run BOINC on you daily driver PC when its running anyway, then it will have little effect on your power bill, and you will still be a valuable part of the project. Sell of a couple of your rigs to get some cash back maybe.

I just run my stack of old P4s when the weather is cold. Doesn't matter if the kwh get used by a PC or an electric panel heater, it still keeps the house warm.

Ian

I too had to turn off my farm last year due to power bills that were crippling, however; I have kept going, doing a small amount is better than doing nothing at all.

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It'd be very interesting to put up 250w or so of panels, an appropriate DC power supply, maybe some batteries, and the appropriate circuitry to power down when the voltage went away (like a UPS does) and see what one could do without any connection to the grid at all.

Tom's Hardware tried something like that a while ago...

See:

Do-It-Yourself Solar-Powered PC: Hardware
DIY Solar-Powered PC: Solar Components

Another oldie is:

Tiny Linux PC uses just 8 watts of power, can be solar powered – The Aleutia E1

I'm sure there'll be other articles that are more recent...


My concern about going solar-electric is that to use photovoltaic cells is still horribly inefficient and costly. There's more immediately effective ways to go 'green'.

Happy cool crunchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

It's not my article (so don't ask me any questions about it), but this guy built some solar panels on the cheap by using scraps.

How I built an electricity producing Solar Panel

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Calm Chaos Forum...Join Calm Chaos Now

I can certainly appreciate the cost of the power that a serious farm consumes. Thats just one of the reasons that SETI does distributed conmputing. Even if they had the budget to build a serious cluster, and the aircon to cool it, they still have to pay the power bill.

This way the power bill is spread out over 100,000 people, who donate what they wish.

Exactly. Not to bash on those who choose to go the extra mile, but the project never expected anyone to build entire farms and shoulder more responsibility (power consumption) than anyone else.

The entire point of Distributed Computing is that it is done by spare CPU cycles around the world, meaning when the computer is powered on doing other things but not using all of its CPU cycles. Turning off your computer when you are done, or when its hot out, or when you go on vacation - its all the same.

This is a down-side to the natural competitiveness that many people have; their yearning to reach the top and collect points and be number 1. In this game, it costs real money to do that. Congrats to those who can. The rest of us have a budget and other problems, especially in this economic troubling time.

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