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  1. #1
    Junior Member Skip Da Shu's Avatar
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    It's just the A/C cost I think is over estimated. I'm thinking it's only going to draw 10A when the compressor is running. I know my 10K BTU window unit out in the office has a large difference at the plug between compressor on / off cycles. I suspect that averaged over 12 months it's drawing less than 1/2 of that. Of course if you live on the equator someplace I could be very wrong. I'm thinking a rough estimate of something closer to $125 / month averaged over 12 months or less.

    PS: See now, Glendale... can't be too far off from Austin, TX... drier probably but ... hmmm lemme check...
    "Glendale, AZ is warmer than Georgetown, TX by 3°F."
    "Georgetown, TX is wetter than Glendale, AZ by 28.6 in."

    So, ya think we can write off our electric bills as a charitable donation?
    Last edited by Skip Da Shu; 02-16-2009 at 12:39 AM. Reason: added PS:
    - da shu @ the BOINC farm, SkipsJunk, Guru Mountain, Crunchers
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  2. #2
    Target Butt IronBits's Avatar
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    I WISH!!!

    I almost never talk about absolute amps/cost because of the on/off nature of electrical devices.
    Video cards for example, do they run less energy when you put the card/monitor to sleep?
    How about when the monitor is just blanked out or turned off?
    How about when it's just displaying text/graphics when surfing etc.
    How about when you fire the beast up for some heavy gaming?
    I'm not sticking my Kill-A-Watt on each system and get annal about it...

    Yes, it can reach 120s here in the summer, and the BIG A/C unit eats 30amps each time it comes on.
    So I tossed a nice Window A/C unit into the computer room window that runs at about 15amps when the compressor is on.
    As you said, probably 1/2 the time on, 1/2 the time on fan mode (~5amps) ...

    I try to keep my computer room free of crunchers so the Servers and my game box can enjoy nice cool dry weather in here, with the door shut.
    I've run $500 per month electricity bills over in Laguna, California, and it doesn't take much around here to hit that high either.
    If I turn everything off, then I can get it down around $250 in the summer months, and about $75 in the winter (gas heat).
    As it is, I pay close to $300 every month, all year long now, on that new monthly average plan they have here.
    $3,600 per year in electricity costs to survive the heat and the privilege of running a few servers and 1/2 dozen crunchers...

  3. #3
    Junior Member Skip Da Shu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by IronBits View Post
    I WISH!!!

    I almost never talk about absolute amps/cost because of the on/off nature of electrical devices.
    Video cards for example, do they run less energy when you put the card/monitor to sleep?
    How about when the monitor is just blanked out or turned off?
    How about when it's just displaying text/graphics when surfing etc.
    How about when you fire the beast up for some heavy gaming?
    I'm not sticking my Kill-A-Watt on each system and get annal about it...

    Yes, it can reach 120s here in the summer, and the BIG A/C unit eats 30amps each time it comes on.
    So I tossed a nice Window A/C unit into the computer room window that runs at about 15amps when the compressor is on.
    As you said, probably 1/2 the time on, 1/2 the time on fan mode (~5amps) ...

    I try to keep my computer room free of crunchers so the Servers and my game box can enjoy nice cool dry weather in here, with the door shut.
    I've run $500 per month electricity bills over in Laguna, California, and it doesn't take much around here to hit that high either.
    If I turn everything off, then I can get it down around $250 in the summer months, and about $75 in the winter (gas heat).
    As it is, I pay close to $300 every month, all year long now, on that new monthly average plan they have here.
    $3,600 per year in electricity costs to survive the heat and the privilege of running a few servers and 1/2 dozen crunchers...
    Boy does some of this sound way to familiar. I've moved "the crunchers" out to the front half of the garage (detached). The office is the back half of the garage (finished out) of what was essentially a 2 x 4 car garage (two deep, two wide). Prior owner had already stubbed in sewer and water and I used that as incentive to finish off the back half of it years ago. It was an 'apartment' of sorts but I took it over as my office...hmmm musta been summer of '07. Getting those crunchers out of the A/C was a major step in cutting the 'lectric bill. When rates hit $.235/Kwh here last summer they would've killed me.

    As a by product of my outrage at the $0.235 rate I hit one month, I have to admit I WAS anal 'nuff to put the kill-o-watt on each cruncher and just about everything else out here. These are headless dedicated crunchers using on-board video. So no monitor, no vid card, no gaming, no 3D graphics, running Xubuntu 64bit. They only float around in about a 8w range depending on work units being crunched and the occasional LAN and/or HDD activity. A much simpler scenario than doing real desktops I freely admit.

    I was trying to figure out what the pay back period would be on replacing my old 'Goodwill computer store" PSUs with 80+ certified units. Obviously this is highly dependent on the Kw/h rate being charged but even at my new "low" (grrrr) summer rate of about $0.125/Kwh the average payback on 80+ PSUs is about 1.9 years when I can pick up a SS300-ES or EA-380 on sale for $36. This was down well under a year when the rates peaked last summer. At those rates my old B3 Q6600 (since moved on) actually had a payback of just 4~5 months. Keep in mind this was replacing old 250w~350w units... so they weren't terribly over power-supplied to begin with.

    The trick comes into figuring out what that 'normal' load is. Bypassing the momentary thought to make current reading adapters/taps for the 20/24 pin, P4 pin and molex (HDD) PSU outputs (sorta like the article you gave us the link to on vid card power)... I took the average at the plug wattages and 'guestimated' an average efficiency of 81% on the 'certified' units. I did some math to see if I could validate that using mostly SS-300ES and EA-380 PSUs but did some checking with a couple of non-80plus certified PSUs also. The then current crunchers were all OC'd Q66 and Q67 CPUs (no case, 1 HDD, 1 HSF, 1 or 2GB of RAM, maybe a NB fan in uATX mobo w/ onboard vid). They averaged out to ~104w each being ask of the PSU with them running BOINC on all 4 cores. About 128w average at the plug

    An interesting thing I stumbled across while doing all this extra (even for me) anal stuff was... It appears that all switching PSUs for desktop computers get their best efficiency at just under 50% load. I don't see how the common method of calculating max load of all components at full load and then adding some 'cushion' wouldn't cause folks to end up with their 'normal' load under 20% and well off any good spot on the efficiency curve. Well that leads to another whole diatribe on PSU overkill... better quit now... but HERE is a link where you can see the independent test results for 80+ certified PSUs.

    l8r, Skip
    - da shu @ the BOINC farm, SkipsJunk, Guru Mountain, Crunchers
    - BoincDV is on-line! Click HERE

  4. #4
    DinkaTronic Shish's Avatar
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    PSU configurator linky

    I've finally finished the 2nd home server and I'm just starting my new DC rig with an I7 in. So that means 5 rigs in the last few months. Phew, now my back is totally gone so I'm back in bed for a few days working by phone and internetically only which is harder than doing it myself even with somebody else's hands.
    Anyway, a handy link I've used for new workstations I've found and used a lot is Corsairs site and I'm now using, mostly (when I can get them), their HX range as efficiency is good, connectors are fabulous for cable runs and plenty of them. I prefer the single rail type against Coolermasters idea of many 12v ones and 80plus silver efficiency gives mostly 90%'ish efficiency. Not the best available efficiency but a fair bit cheaper than the 90%+ models out now. Plenty other manufacturers offering 80plus silver certified psu now but a warning is check how many connectors you're getting if you want to run lots of raided stuff.
    Linky http://www.corsair.com/psufinder/default.aspx
    Like an ol` 8086, slow but serviceable.
    One advantage of old age...nobody can tell you how much cake you can eat


  5. #5
    Junior Member Skip Da Shu's Avatar
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    80+ Bronze PSUs

    Here's a current deal on a Bronze 80+ with a rebate going on it. Ends up being $30 + shipping, 400w which should be plenty for anything w/o a big vid card in it.

    NewEgg 80+ RaidMax
    - da shu @ the BOINC farm, SkipsJunk, Guru Mountain, Crunchers
    - BoincDV is on-line! Click HERE

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