The Cost of Distributed Client Computing? 527
ialbert asks: "I only recently decided to install SETI@home on my mostly idle home computer. It got me thinking though, are those free processor cycles truly free? Has anyone had experience with processors dying prematurely due to a constant, heavy load, or is usage pretty inconsequential? What about other components, like harddrives? And how much does a 100% processor load increase your power bill versus a 1-2% idle load over the course of a year? It's easy to think of idle computers as an untapped computational resource, but what are the costs to the computer owners?"
missin the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Its not about money.
Or to put it another way. How much CPU cycles are wasted on Pr0n, and how does this help society?
No moving parts (Score:2, Insightful)
Power (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:full speed ahead (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:full speed ahead (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Processors dying... (Score:2, Insightful)
if you are useing an overclocked Intel chip,
then yes, as they change the cycles to suite
the load and heat, you may age the chip,
but the ageing is only slight.
On AMD chips, they run the same weather under
load or not, so theres no ageing there.
Most of the damage to chips happens durning
booting up, powering down and spikes and surges.
[overclockers.com]
Overclocking's Impact on CPU Life
Re:50 Watts increase at 100% CPU Load (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, if you live in a warm area you have to pay for the power used in the distibuted computing twice. First in the compter and then in the removal process; air condition.
But most people don't live in a are where they need to run either air condition or some form of oven 24/7 so the balance is mixed.
Distributed computing is not a very efficient use of power since many of the computers are old and power up unnecessarily hardware. But the extra costs are distributed on so many individuals that it doesn't matter anyway. Power is cheap in industralised countries (maybe too cheap) so the difference between a $100 and a $120 power bill is minimal.
Re:ram drive (Score:5, Insightful)
You living in Bizarro world? Or are you just an overclocker?
How could a mechanical hard drive be more reliable than a solid-state CPU? Hard drive failures are a well-known problem, which even makes its way into primetime sitcoms. Everyone knows someone who's drive crashed. Rumors fly that the latest batch of Seagate or Western Digital may have jinxy spindles.
But stop a pedestrian and ask him when he last heard of a CPU burnout- you'll get a puzzled look. Since I don't OC, I've never lost a CPU. But my stack of dead IDE drives is tall on the bookcase.
Even amoung Slashdot users, I'm sure a show of hands would reveal that far many more people have suffered from unpredictable failures of an HD than a CPU.
(Google says that "hard drive reliability" is nearly twice as common a topic as "CPU reliability")
The most you`d hope to get out of it is `yes, there are other civilisations out there`, and I already know that.
You'd get two things, sequentially:
1. Not just knowledge, but PROOF. That you followed Sagan's "billions & billions" calculations is one thing. That everyone else KNOWS its true is another. Potentially, this could change the terrestrial balance of power. (More likely, resistant groups will deny the proof, but they'll at least be marginalized somewhat)
2. Later you'd get actual translations of the messages. Who could predict the value of alien wisdom and folly?
Re:Power (Score:5, Insightful)
Dell PIII-550MHz:
Athlon 1800+
So my computers seem to use about 20 extra watts under load compared to idle. That would amount to an extra $18/year if the app ran all the time compared to letting the machine idle all the time (@ $.10/kwh).
However, I usually power my systems off when I'm not using them. If my athlon system is off an average of 16 hours per day vs. running under load, that saves $65 per year.
My 17-inch CRT monitor used 74 watts. Turning off or suspending that would save a similar amount of money. Altogether, that would be about $10 per month, as you guessed.
Re:UPs dying...Thermal/Power (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:50 Watts increase at 100% CPU Load (Score:3, Insightful)
It is exactly this sort of thinking which leads to large-scale environmental problems, our tendency being to avoid responsibility when the blame is spread thin enough.
Re:50 Watts increase at 100% CPU Load (Score:1, Insightful)