[Gllug] Energy consumption puzzlement
Anthony Newman
anthony.newman at ossified.net
Thu Jan 18 01:03:51 UTC 2007
M.Blackmore wrote:
> Heres' a puzzlement: borrowed a lekky measuring machine from the local
> environmental group and stuck it onto the multipoint socket that feeds
> the server, firewall, eth switch, wireless access point, adsl modem,
> printer.
<snip>
> BUT why should turning it off INCREASE the consumption?
Electronic "switched-mode" power supplies are rather non-linear, and
your basic power measuring device is probably only designed with the
simple case of coping with well-behaved equipment.
Whether or not you are seeing a true increase in power consumption, the
likely cause of the indicated change is the power factor of your
equipment, or the non-sinusoidal current demand the equipment imposes.
Non-specialist measuring equipment will probably report it incorrectly.
> If it isn't worth scrapping an average European motor car of its era
> for 25 yrs for a less fuel consuming one, how long does it take to
> nullify the embedded total environmental costs of using up old
> computer kit until it actually irretrievably expires?
If you consider it useful unless it has expired, then the answer is
surely never :)
Ant
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