I'm thinking about Ditching al my Systems.

Spud1200

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Seriously. Its crossed my mind about how much Electricity I could save thus saving ££'s every month running 5 Systems 24\7. I'm thinking about upgrading to better Cost effective equipment but in the mean time, I want my Electric Arrears cleared and transforming my Flat back to a Home, and not just a house.

I am flat stinking A** broke at the minute and can't up grade to anything state of the art so this is a big decision. Its stressful maintaining 5 Systems individually and thus the overall network doing SETI@Home and Folding@Home.

I just don't know what to do because I cant let go of the Systems what I have all ready since its a passion. I'm maintaining 4 Desktops and 1 Laptop around the Clock 7 Days a week threw a Switch. I have my Bed in the alcove, and thus want to take my experiment further with Magnetic and Electro Shielding and also in regards to Radio Waves being a fulling independent Flat, as the project has been dropped for the time being with regards to the shielding i installed in the Alcove.

I've just ditched a lot of older equipment such as Old CRT TV's and VHS Players and DVD Combo Drives.

If I upgrade I could Upgrade the Motherboard, CPU Memory and GPU. As in just spend a wad of Cash on the Vital Parts but again I cant let go of the Equipment since its fully working and crunching at this moment in time.

Any Ideas what to do?
 
You gotta just ask your self, What do you need the old stuff for? If I kept every old system that worked I'd be a serious horder lol I still have 3 well working systems and a laptop, but each has a purpose and only goes on when needed, One is gaming only, The one it replaced is for bills and general use, The third Ouse for fixing other people's computers so if I put there HD in it and get the virus they had it's no big deal I just wipe it and reinstall windows. And the laptop I got free but use it when I go to someone's house to fix a system, I'll use it to download drivers and such or show them a parts list for a build for a new system. And when ISO build a new system I offer to get rid of the old one. See how much trouble I could get into if I kept all running systems lol I usually piece together a good system from parts and when someone has a real old one and no money to buy a new one I'll just give them the one I put together in place of the old one they need fixed, It's always a newer system than what they already had. Just my way to pay it forward to people, I don't charge when I give it to them either. So just ask your self what do you really need and want and decide from there.

Dauntae
 
If you only used one pc, you could upgrade it or get the parts for a new pc with the money you save from dropping your electric bill
 
Personally, I would ditch them but that's because I stopped running programs like that years ago. I don't even leave my AC or heater on when I leave the house.
 
Seriously... I would put all the projects on hold to bring your electrical usage back into a sustainable cost range. Then ask my self the following...

1: I have all these old P3 and P4 era Xeon servers running, they consume 1KW of power each, is it really beneficial to have them operational and working at full speed?
2: Could I shut them down and be satisfied with my network as is till savings in electricity can afford me more powerful, yet, less power hungry equipment?
3: Could I sell this equipment at a cheap price to help offset the costs of better performing hardware?

If you want a practical scenario, look at me. I have two SuperMicro servers, one has dual Dual Core Xeons @ 2.4Ghz, another has dual P3 processors at like 1.4 or 1.8Ghz. Those two machines consume about 1800 watts of power, and did VERY little for my network, they was setup to be routers for a multi-gateway network.

I then looked at available hardware I had available to me, then looked at the power consumption, as well as performance of the hardware. A SINGLE, AMD Sempron 145 processor had more power than all those rack servers combined, yet only has a TDP of 45w, so it essentially SIPS power. I went from pulling about 1800watts of electricity to using under 200watts TOTAL for routing functions, my only delima was that I needed 3 Gigabit NICS, one for LAN, two for Gateways, a Dual Gigabit Intel nic isn't exactly cheap, but found a really good one for under $100.

Now lets look at my cost savings which is a bit extreme since we do have some the highest prices in the country.

1800w = 1.8Kw/H
I am charged 0.21 cents per KwH. Assuming those systems ran 24/7 at full load, which they frequently did, I was seeing about 30 days * 24 hours * $0.21 = $151 JUST to operate those systems, then I have to take into account of how much it cost to COOL them. My room temp dropped a good 10C over a 24 hour period EASILY by turning those systems off. I was looking at $200 to $250 a MONTH just operating and maintaining those TWO servers.

Now, lets look at my new server which is employing a much more EFFICIENT processor.

200w = 0.2Kw/h, so 144Kw/H a month on average vs the 1269Kw/H the previous system was using.

In the end, my electrical bill is a fraction of what it used to be. If anyone wants to figure out my savings, you need to call my local co-op as they charge different rates at different times of day, as well as at different amounts of usage. Makes finding my savings a PITA :)

Praying to god I did my math right, never use math really. But what this boils down to is, I can save a ton of money in the long run, and keep doing the same things, if not more in the future as long as I keep things efficient.
 
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I don't want to hurt anybody in the wrong spot here, but your use is actually practical, rather than a bunch of old machines wasting power crunching. We also have to take into consideration the heat generated as well. Those old CPUs were still warm.
 
I don't want to hurt anybody in the wrong spot here, but your use is actually practical, rather than a bunch of old machines wasting power crunching. We also have to take into consideration the heat generated as well. Those old CPUs were still warm.

Not exactly sure what you mean PP? -lost-
 
That is true, but for both of us, what we are doing, or was doing, was vital to us alone.

But in all honesty, if his machines are as old as I am thinking, an 8-core atom processor could probably crunch better.
 
Sadly they are old and a total waste.

For giggles I loaded F@H on my Alienware 18, 4700qm, 770m sli and the results were disappointing.

I've already told him 1 modern gpu out does his systems at only $250 and 1/4 the power. The power savings of the 9 series cards keep me from buying the dramatically reduced 7 series and R9's.

I'm fortunate to have the finical means to run anything I want, yet still only run my SR-2 due to power/ppd ratio. I may contribute blindly, but I'm not wasteful.
 
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