Detection Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 These meters are crazy - but wouldn't you just put like 200 quid on them and not worry for quite some time? Guess depends on where your at financially, so these are all in juts rent apt/flats - you don't see these in single family homes?? Do you. I could see them making great sense in flats/apartments -- especially if there was a bit of turnover in the renters, if people renting the place change out every few months. Never seen anything like it here in the states that is for sure. You can have them fitted anywhere if you ask for them, or if you're not paying your bills they can come and fit them without your permission and program them with the amount owed so every time you top up the meter it takes a few ? off for debt too so you can't get away without paying it unless you never top up (Or break the metal tag and join the red live wires together :shiftyninja: ) But yea I've never had ?200 spare enough to stick it on the electric or gas, generally stick ?10/?20 at a time on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draconian Guppy Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 Yes. Power cycling will cause very little damage. Not having a UPS causes a LOT more problems. If you don't have A UPS you SHOULD power off whenever not in use! Sorry, English is my first language, but I am terrible at it. Oh yeah, that makes sense... IMO in modern world, for modern electronics a UPS with builtin battery SHOULD always be in when considering a new PC/laptop/tablet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
srbeen Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 Oh yeah, that makes sense... IMO in modern world, for modern electronics a UPS with builtin battery SHOULD always be in when considering a new PC/laptop/tablet. The voltage isn't very important with AC. It has to be in the range of like 94V to 130V (210-240V in some places) for the supply to meet its DC requirements. Its phase frequency matters more for component stress. Else you start getting into the squigglies of electronics with eddy currents, conduction losses, harmonics and much more mathematically proven electric systems stuff that cause latent failures. Latent failures are like a form of cancer for computers, it takes a long time to develop and isn't really explainable without a lot of research. Even a power/line conditioner (ensuring solid 50/60Hz output and filtering out any power spikes) should be on your power cords for laptops. Some are sold as a surge surpressor that has a MOSFET In it, basically one shot and dead, but the good ones has a heavy isolated transformer which basically puts out what it gets in, just cleaner than the transformer 5 miles away did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted January 11, 2013 MVC Share Posted January 11, 2013 "and it idle'd around 160W" What are you running that idles at that? And that is just your PC not and monitor? Yeah that can eat up some money.. Even at 0.125 kwh.. Mine is sitting at 65 and that includes the monitor. That is 160x24 = 3.84 khw a day! Times 30 your looking at 115 kwh or about $14.5 here in Chicagoland. That is about the amount I was using when I had 3 servers running, before I consolidated down to my N40L. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perochan Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 Yes. Power cycling will cause very little damage. Not having a UPS causes a LOT more problems. If you don't have A UPS you SHOULD power off whenever not in use! Sorry, English is my first language, but I am terrible at it. oh really. i have an UPS and never set it up. I will go home and set it up now :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
srbeen Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 oh really. i have an UPS and never set it up. I will go home and set it up now :D Well, since I set mine up I hear it click in 2-3 times a day because the power isn't how it should be, then again my power company has been known to lose power for hours due to crows and rain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrp04 Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 That's probably one of the problems, I've got HDDs to stay on for 4 hours idle before spinning down, 1. for wear and tear of continuously having to spin back up every 10 minutes and 2. because I was sick of trying to open a folder and it hanging while it waited for the disk to spin up Power savings are all disabled for the CPU too, & OCd but generally sits at 0% load while I`m here / browsing It wouldn't cost less than one of my lightbulbs lol, I've fitted energy saving bulbs all over the house, its always the 1st thing I do when I move in somewhere, saves a fortune and they last forever Why disable the power saving features of the CPU? As far as I know, there are no negative effects of letting the CPU enter a low power state when idle. Saves power and heat. ThaCrip 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detection Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Why disable the power saving features of the CPU? As far as I know, there are no negative effects of letting the CPU enter a low power state when idle. Saves power and heat. Overclock stability mainly and not having to wait for it to ramp up each time, can't remember exactly what it was now, but that & my old CFX setup entering ULPS was causing problems gaming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrp04 Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Overclock stability mainly and not having to wait for it to ramp up each time, can't remember exactly what it was now, but that & my old CFX setup entering ULPS was causing problems gaming Interesting. How long ago were you having the overclocking instabilities? I don't remember if this option was available long ago, but my board has different voltages for idle and turbo modes. I have my i5-2500K overclocked to 4.4GHz boost (not THAT crazy) and idle power savings are still enabled and have no stability issues at all. With a GTX 670 graphics card the whole computer uses around 70W (at the outlet) when completely idle (monitors sleeping). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detection Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Interesting. How long ago were you having the overclocking instabilities? I don't remember if this option was available long ago, but my board has different voltages for idle and turbo modes. I have my i5-2500K overclocked to 4.4GHz boost (not THAT crazy) and idle power savings are still enabled and have no stability issues at all. With a GTX 670 graphics card the whole computer uses around 70W (at the outlet) when completely idle (monitors sleeping). It was a while back, I have a 7870 now, got rid of CFX (For good I hope) - maybe 1.5 years since I tried? To be honest it has been a while since I messed with power saving, this CPU is a bi*ch to stabilize much above 3.8 unless you use your own mini reactor so I just learned to OC > Stabilize > Leave well alone I do have a nice board to tweak with now but haven't seen much more than 100MHz extra on the CPU more than previous boards could stabilize, so I`m just holding off until I can grab a piledriver or see what AMD push out next I was planning on Bulldozer but 'nuff said as to why I kept this 965 until now :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medhunter Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 I am going to renovate an old machine AMD Athlon 3200 and use it 24/7 soon. I hope you welcome me in the club Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted January 16, 2013 Veteran Share Posted January 16, 2013 "and it idle'd around 160W" What are you running that idles at that? And that is just your PC not and monitor? Yeah that can eat up some money.. Even at 0.125 kwh.. Mine is sitting at 65 and that includes the monitor. That is 160x24 = 3.84 khw a day! Times 30 your looking at 115 kwh or about $14.5 here in Chicagoland. That is about the amount I was using when I had 3 servers running, before I consolidated down to my N40L. Remember budman the discussion I had going before about idle wattage, I had a system that idled at 250watts! (just the system, no monitor or anything else) my old X58 system did that, now my new ivy bridge system idles at 38 watts :) 160 watts isn't a shock if its an older chipset Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts