Big screen TV's negate energy savings from CFLs

[[email protected]]

| On 15 Dec 2007 14:44:03 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
|
|>| In article <[email protected]>,
|>| [email protected] (Beachcomber) writes:
|>|> Interestingly enough, the WSJ article on 12/13 points out that "Energy
|>|> Star" devices are only defined for their efficiency when they are OFF
|>|> (or more properly in standby and sucking power constantly to keeps
|>|> clocks & receiver circuitry running while awaiting commands).
|>|
|>| When I was looking at Energy Star ~3 years ago, there were some
|>| interesting loopholes. A PC in power saving mode just had to drop
|>| it's consumption to some proportion (10% IIRC) of the max rating of
|>| the PSU, so if you fitted an appropriately oversized PSU you could
|>| conform without actually reducing the consumption of the PC at all.
|>
|>In fact I have had to oversize some power supplies because there seems
|>to be a crop of them in the past few years that will let some voltages
|>slip down at higher loads, and some critical devices (hard drives) have
|>shutdown as a result. On a machine using around 65 watts on, a 135 watt
|>P/S would occaisionally have hard drives shut down. When I put in a
|>_new_ (and that may be part of the equation) 250 watts P/S, the problem
|>has not returned at all.
|
| What a fucking joke. BOTH the 135W and the 250W supply sounds like
| cheap chinese bullshit. Do you also buy PC cases that are less than $50
| each, and come with a supply? No wonder you have problems.

It was a cheap power supply in an otherwise just right case. The 250W
supply works just fine. So that seems to rule out the Chinese as the
source of the problem.


| I haven't used a PC PSU that was rated at less than 400W for years, and
| most of my machines did not consume more than a few hundred watts. Why?
| Because I know the difference between high end cheap chinese with a
| slightly higher cost, and low end cheap chinese (your retarded choice)
| that cost less, but are almost guaranteed to have a huge failure rate
| when used at over 50% of their rated output.

The usage was under 50% on the first power supply. Now it is near 25%.


| My last case was about $130 and did not come with a supply. But then
| hey, Antec makes the best cases around. My machine has four HDs, and two
| optical drives, and an NVidia 8800 vid card, which anyone with any brains
| knows uses a huge chunk of juice.

Antec did not then, nor even now, makes any case that meets the requirements
I had at the time I built the machines in question. Today I have different
requirements and alas, an Antec case does indeed fit just right. I have
two of them here, now, ready for stuff to be installed (when parts on the
critical work path finally arrive). Unfortunately no one supplier carries
everything I need. I've ordered from 4 different places so far. If I
could get it all from Newegg, I would, as they have been fastest and doing
the processing and delivery. But they do not carry 100% of models and they
do run out of things sometimes.


|>I'm building a new computer this month (as individual parts trickle in)
|>and I am making sure the P/S is well oversized for better stability.
|
| Jeez. Just go to Tom's Hardware site and look at the already done for
| you research on brands and price/value analysis as well.

Because YOU say so? I do quite well figuring out what I need.

Actually I would, if they would ever figure out how to design a web site
properly.

 

[[email protected]]

| On 15 Dec 2007 08:36:05 GMT, [email protected] (Andrew Gabriel)
| wrote:
|
|>In article <[email protected]>,
|> [email protected] (Beachcomber) writes:
|>> Interestingly enough, the WSJ article on 12/13 points out that "Energy
|>> Star" devices are only defined for their efficiency when they are OFF
|>> (or more properly in standby and sucking power constantly to keeps
|>> clocks & receiver circuitry running while awaiting commands).
|>
|>When I was looking at Energy Star ~3 years ago, there were some
|>interesting loopholes. A PC in power saving mode just had to drop
|>it's consumption to some proportion (10% IIRC) of the max rating of
|>the PSU, so if you fitted an appropriately oversized PSU you could
|>conform without actually reducing the consumption of the PC at all.
|
| Yeah, I am quite sure that folks everywhere rushed out and bought 1kW
| PSUs for their 100Watt slimline PCs. NOT!
|
| Use a little common sense.

The standard has been to get a PSU with a rating about double that of the
actual power level you expect to use. Do you have a reason to believe it
should change to some other ratio? Maybe quadruple?

 

[krw]

Beachcomber wrote:

[snip]
Even the LCD displays typically consume more power than the CRT's they
are replacing, (according to this article), and there is not much that
the manufactuers can do about it.

I don't think so. I have a 37" LCD TV set that draws 210W. My 24" CRT TV
draws 180 W.

I have a 17" CRT monitor and a 17" LCD monitor. The CRT takes 180 W, the
LCD's power brick is rated at 50W (I can't find the specs on the screen.
It may draw less than 50W).

Some folks at Boeing did a heat load calculation on an engineering
office building back when LCDs were still pricey. The power saved plus
the reduction in air conditioning would pay for an LCD monitor in one to
two years, IIRC.

That calculation is only valid if the replacements are the same size.
It wasn't long ago that 15" displays were the norm. Now it's at
least 19", perhaps a couple of 21" in that environment. ...or should
be if they're doing a real economic analysis, rather than a research-
to-prove-conclusion analysis. If dual displays saved one minute a
day, the second monitor would have a payback of a year or two. I
could save a hell of a lot more than that, not to mention a few
trees. Power consumption (or anything else) can't be analyzed in a
vacuum.

Of course, many other considerations would have to go into the analysis.
But it stood on the power savings alone.

Sure, power savings can be seen on the bottom line. Engineer
savings can't, so aren't considered. :-( Someone over on
alt.folklore.computers has told the story about justifying
terminals for engineers in the '70s. His analysis showed that the
cost of the computer was lower than the telephone on their desk,
but somehow the telephone was seen as a necessity, not a "luxury"
like computer access. Engineers had to queue in "terminal rooms"
for access. BTW, the company in question was IBM (I was one of the
first in mainframe development with a terminal on my desk, in
'78ish).

We were kidding among ourselves that they (the Boeing facilities people)
would probably bite if we showed them that the reduced depth of a flat
panel would allow closer spacing of desks and a resulting higher
'engineers per square foot' figure. We all suspected that they had
modeled offices after the one in 'Brazil'.

In '01 they moved our group to a renovated building (then moved us
back after layoffs after spending $2.5M on rented space, but that's
another story). They were going to move us from 8'x12' (higher
levels had 12'x12') offices to 6'x8' Dilbertvilles, until they saw
my three monitors and two systems (plus a laptop). The space-
cadets then decided that engineers would get 8'x8' cubes (still
smallish, but it worked) and techs the 6x8s. After adding
"breakout rooms" and more conference rooms for discussion/reviews,
that were previously done in offices, they saved zero space over
the previous floor plan.

In short, don't give the space-cadets any ideas. They have enough
bad ones on their own.

 

[krw]

You must be talking about "graphics" terminals. Text terminals were
very common on IBM desks in 72-73. Places like AAS Bethesda had
hundreds of 2260s and later 3277-78s.

No, 327x. I did have a 3277GA though. Terminals were common for
programmers, but engineers "didn't need them". I ran into this
attitude in management as late as '84. One first line wouldn't let
me order PCs for his engineers because "his engineers aren't
secretaries".

 

[ChairmanOfTheBored]

In short, don't give the space-cadets any ideas. They have enough
bad ones on their own.

You're a fine fucking example.

 

[ChairmanOfTheBored]

You must be talking about "graphics" terminals. Text terminals were
very common on IBM desks in 72-73. Places like AAS Bethesda had
hundreds of 2260s and later 3277-78s.

He's an idiot.

 

[krw]

We had the same problem in FE but we had parts ;-)

We had a couple of hundred 3277GAs and some thing like a hundred
5100s built out of parts. The 3277GAs were legit, but the 5100s
came in the back door. Someone got ahold of the BOM and ordered
100+ copies of everything on it and had a summer coop put them all
together. The mucky mucks found out and change the system so one
had to have a serial number to order the case. We already had 100
systems. ;-)

Most of our PCs were in wooden cases (cases have serial numbers) until
we embarassed them so bad they gave us hand me down sales PCs.

Sounds familiar. ;-) In the '80s I ordered new stuff when it
became available (I had a network of "ears"). I took the best of
it and the older stuff got handed down the line, eventually to
secretaries. They couldn't "justify" new equipment but we had the
right lie^h^h^hbusiness case. Everyone was happy. ;-)

 

[krw]

You're a fine fucking example.

Hey Dimbulb, did your mommy find her missing underwear yet?

 

[krw]

Once I found "trade" forum we had lots of stuff. That was a "free for
all" flea market for swapping IBM stuff around.

Every time I went there they wanted an IPT for the stuff. If I had
the blue-money for an IPT I wouldn't need to trade for it. Bean
counters are so narrow-minded.

 

[ChairmanOfTheBored]

If she did, she wouldn't want it back.

Hasn't that infected jaw killed you yet?

It sure has gone to your brain and killed what little of that you had.

 

[krw]

You just had to have something to "trade" besides blue money, that was
the point. We were in the hardware business. I could usually come up
with something someone would want. I sorted the "Used Part Returns"
and I tested anything that looked promising. If someone threw a "FRU
bucket" of several parts, usually only one was bad, if there was a bad
part at all.
This stuff was usually just bulk shipped to a recycler anyway for
pennies a pound. I figured I was saving the company money by
"recycling" it myself.

That was the problem with being in development; no spare parts.
WHen I was working for CCP I the early '80s, I did have access to a
pile of 64K and then 256K DRAMs though. Unfortunately, while I had
more than enough to fill any PC I could lay my hands on, I wasn't
the keeper of the keys so couldn't even use them as barter either.
:-(

 

[krw]

[snip]

Wow! I'm glad our management didn't look around and see what
everyone was doing with them. The first adopters were the
executives themselves. They did *nothing* with them but look
important. Well, the head cheese didn't have one. He bragged
about never having had the need for computer. Of course, that was
just before the boat nearly sank (what iceberg?).

At about this time, my dad worked as an engineering manager for a
defense contractor. He never had any use for a PC, figuring that these
were better for CAD, analysis and other similar tasks.

However, his management had other ideas. While his engineers had trouble
requisitioning anything, the IT folks were instructed to install PCs on
every manager's desk (for appearance purposes). When his showed up, he
took one look at it and called one of his staff to come and get the
damned thing. They (happily) complied. A week or so later, the IT folks
stopped by to check the system out and.....it was not on his desk.
Fortunately, they had a piss poor asset tracking system, so they figured
the original had never been delivered and they simply got him another
one.

This went on for about half a dozen or so PCs until someone upstairs
caught on and told him to quit relocating them. OTOH, staff was quite
happy.

I work in the defense industry now (contractor). Nothing's
changed.