4 ms·
Looking back I wonder how many megawatts were wasted on screen savers and SetiAtHome in the 90s
by tonymet 4y ago
Looking back I wonder how many megawatts were wasted on screen savers and SetiAtHome in the 90s
- paulryanrogers 4y agoSadly there was (still is?) a mentality that daily turning off your computer was somehow bad for it. Considering energy consumption it always seemed crazy to me, even with a nominal increase in drive wear. Steve Gibson still advocates never turning of spinning disks in this modern era.
- Dalewyn 4y agoA computer undergoes the most electrical stress when turning on, and doubly so for any components that also experience physical stresses such as HDDs and fans. One of the quickest ways to kill a HDD or fan is to make it spin up its motor from idle frequently as a consequence of power saving policies. Personally, I never turn my computers off unless I know I won't be using them for extended periods of time (say a week or two). The power bill savings aren't worth the decreased hardware life.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago> The power bill savings aren't worth the decreased hardware life. For consumer usage I find this hard to believe. I only use my laptop/desktop's spinning disks like 2h a day at most. Then there are hybrid disks or systems that are likely sleeping the disks when use is infrequent.
- Dalewyn 4y agoLet me put it this way: I have a ~12 year old (110,651 power on hours), 500GB PATA Maxtor/Seagate HDD with 135 power cycles. It's still alive and kicking ass as we speak.
- IIsi50MHz 4y agoHmm, I think we need more evidence to decide which tradeoffs we're making. I have four 1990s drives with thousands of power cycles, still fully functional. And one more from the same time period that failed about 8 years ago. (( Why do I have these? Well, because they're SCSI or SCSI II, which the hosts support. And because I've not bothered to replace the drives with solid-state hacks that put SD cards on the same interface. ))
- justsomehnguy 4y agoIn my life life of L1 tech I had replaced too many HDDs to count. Sure, the main problem was the subpar PSUs, but are you sure what your PSU is enough?
- Someone 4y agoI don’t see how that addresses the claim “The power bill savings aren't worth the decreased hardware life.” It might even be the case that, if you bought a replacement six years ago and kept that powered on 24/7, you would have ended up paying less in (hardware+power).
- Dalewyn 4y agoYeah, but it's one more hard drive in the trash. Besides, it's not this hard drive anyway. At this point I want to see how long this wizard of a hard drive will keep running.
- timthorn 4y agoGiven we're talking of After Dark times, don't forget to run park before turning the machine off :)
- logbiscuitswave 4y agoIt was definitely worse on old hardware, and with the many old and unrefurbished computers that are likely inflicted with capacitor plague, you’re likely to blow something up if you power one up that’s been sitting idle in someone’s basement for the past couple decades. With modern power management there’s less of a reason to power it off. S3 can power down most peripherals when they aren’t being used and draw just a few watts. Even when shut down, the PSU still needs to consume power so it can turn on when you press the power button, keep the internal clock running, and a few other things. It’s minimal draw but it’s still using electricity. Only way to completely turn it off is by switching off the PSU (if you can) or unplugging completely.
- Dalewyn 4y ago>keep the internal clock running That's the job of the mobo battery, the PSU just charges it as an afterthought.
- logbiscuitswave 4y agoThe battery isn’t typically charged by the PSU — it’s often just a regular lithium coin cell. It’s a backup for when it is unplugged so the clock doesn’t reset and CMOS settings aren’t lost.
- justsomehnguy 4y agoRamp load/unload still wears it, it's the basic physics. And the failure rate of drives with an agressive powersaving[0] says there are some truth to it. [0] WD Green, remembrr them?
- masswerk 4y agoTurning on is what actually kills most hardware. So, yay…
- Logans_Run 4y agoGiven the power consumption of the typical 21+ CRT monitors at the time it probably saved a whole load of power.
- duskwuff 4y agoNot to mention, most computers at the time didn't implement any kind of idle power savings. Running a flashy screensaver didn't use any more power than sitting at the desktop.
- masswerk 4y agoCRTs weren't that power hungry at all. E.g., an entire 8-bit computer from 1979 (Sharp Mz-80) is rated 45W, including the CPU, the entire PCB, and its 9 inch monitor. A 21 inch Trinitron CRT monitor is rated at 1.2A (this is less than a Raspberry Pi 3; there's no Watt rating on the label, but I recall it as about 30-35W). These are actual ratings from actual equipment, I have. In fact, early LCD monitors were (much) more power hungry. E.g., a not that early Apple Cinema HD Display from 2007 is still rated 2.05A (65W) at 20 inch and 3.7A (90W) at 23 inch. Taking the weighted average, this is double the energy consumption of the 21 inch Trinitron CRT. A modern 24 inch M1 iMac is still in about the same range as this LCD, at about 80-85W (including the CPU and PCB).
- edb_123 4y ago1.2A doesn't say much without knowing the voltage. If you're in the US and (this being a CRT monitor) it's running on a mains voltage of 120V, this would be 144 watts.
- Logans_Run 4y agoAssuming that P=VA that would mean that the Trinitron was using 240v x 1.2a = 288W or if on 110v 110v x 1.2a = 132W. Raspberry Pi 3 = 5v x ~2.1a = 10.5W max.
- lelanthran 4y agoInteresting. I gave away my old monster CRT so I cannot check. I wonder if it would be possible to buy a modern 27" or larger CRT these days; I recall that the CRTs always looked better than the LCDs when LCDs first became popular.
- tomcam 4y agoabout 350