The "New Toys" Thread

In the last 3 years I hovered around the 1000 kWh mark, but I don't have a washing machine, a tumble dryer or a dishwasher in my flat so you have to add out those if you have them (we have a laundry in the basement where you pay 1,50 Euro per wash and 0,50 or 1 Euro per drying).

i don't have any of those either, but i'm a lazy student so i spend a good amount of time at home with the PC on :p still, i'm still trying to get my consumption down a little bit...
 
A long time ago, I had my computer always on, too. That was when I didn't pay the electricity bill myself...
How expensive is your electricity? I see almost no difference between running two desktops constantly and having them off (before I set up my network). It's maybe like $5 or so extra, thats less than what I pay for lunch.
 
A long time ago, I had my computer always on, too. That was when I didn't pay the electricity bill myself...

My laptop only pulls as much electricity as it needs. :dunno: That and the fact I'm in student accommodation means utilities are included in fixed rent, so I don't really care how much I use. :p
 
How expensive is your electricity? I see almost no difference between running two desktops constantly and having them off (before I set up my network). It's maybe like $5 or so extra, thats less than what I pay for lunch.

in the end it comes down to ~20-25 ct/kWh.
also, let's bring out the math! a common desktop PC in idle will draw about 100 W (maybe a little less, maybe a little more, just for ease of use). let's also say you just leave it on overnight or when you leave for work or whatever it is you do - let's make that 10 hours a day the machine is running while you're not actively using it (again - number chosen for ease of use rather than anything else). that gives you 1 kWh or about 25ct per day... which, imo, is quite a lot for basically nothing gained! run that up to 365 days per year and you end up paying about 90?/year in electricity alone because you left your PC on.

i'd consider that quite a lot of money...

My laptop only pulls as much electricity as it needs. :dunno:

it's a laptop, so yeah it's not that bad. but still, even my laptop i'd at least set to sleep. take the above calculation - even small things can accumulate fairly quickly :nod:
 
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How expensive is your electricity?
(For me) 3,50 Euro per month base price plus about 26 cents per kWh including taxes.

For me it's not that I really care for the money (5-10 Euro per month would be no problem), but when I'm not at home I don't have anything the PC could do for me. That's why it's really unnecessary to run 2/3rd of the day (9 hours work, 7 hours sleep). No, electricity doesn't come from the power outlet, it comes from a power plant which in one way or the other influences the environment. It may sound like a drop in the ocean, but then again it's constant dripping wears away the stone.
 


Awaiting my pick up on Saturday. The Senns on-ear headphones I'm currently using since my old HD 465 broke are ok, but I miss the over-ear feel of proper headphones.

Finally picking up tomorrow. Only 1 week later than expected. And they're Sennheiser HD280, I forgot to mention before.
 
i use 1 pc always on (has backup hdd's in raid + znc -irc program), and i use 2 other pc's on about 10-14hours a day.

for the electricity, its about 17 ct/kWh, but since i live with parents in a appartment thats heated via electrical heating, my computer usage is a drop in the ocean :p
we did lower our consumption by changing all lighbulbs to the energy saving lamps and started to put lights out places we aren't in (need to get father to see the "light" of not having all lights on) by about 30eur/monht.
 
After my dorm hall did room inspections they put on everyone's letter telling them how they did that they wanted people to start cutting down on energy usage to go green... But the hallways are always at full light 24/7. If they want to save energy, turn off a few of those fluorescent lights (not all, leave like half of them on or something so people can still see) so it's not full glare at 3 in the morning.
 
After my dorm hall did room inspections they put on everyone's letter telling them how they did that they wanted people to start cutting down on energy usage to go green... But the hallways are always at full light 24/7. If they want to save energy, turn off a few of those fluorescent lights (not all, leave like half of them on or something so people can still see) so it's not full glare at 3 in the morning.

just put movement sensors in the hallways :dunno: perfect place for them really and the cost would probably be made back in the first year
 
in the end it comes down to ~20-25 ct/kWh.
also, let's bring out the math! a common desktop PC in idle will draw about 100 W (maybe a little less, maybe a little more, just for ease of use). let's also say you just leave it on overnight or when you leave for work or whatever it is you do - let's make that 10 hours a day the machine is running while you're not actively using it (again - number chosen for ease of use rather than anything else). that gives you 1 kWh or about 25ct per day... which, imo, is quite a lot for basically nothing gained! run that up to 365 days per year and you end up paying about 90?/year in electricity alone because you left your PC on.
I'm fairly certain they draw quite a bit less, especially a headless NAS running Linux my CPU usage is usually 1-3% on that machine even when in use. It just doesn't take that much power to run CPU at idle and the HDDs (built in video card so it draws next to nothing as well). The mini (media server) draws even less at idle as its basically a laptop, when transcoding it ofcourse draws more but then that can't really be used against it as you would normally have a PC on if you needed to transcode.

If you want to talk about small things that add up, I don't think anyone turns off routers and unplugs all the adaptors when not in use, all those things draw power as well.

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(For me) 3,50 Euro per month base price plus about 26 cents per kWh including taxes.

For me it's not that I really care for the money (5-10 Euro per month would be no problem), but when I'm not at home I don't have anything the PC could do for me. That's why it's really unnecessary to run 2/3rd of the day (9 hours work, 7 hours sleep). No, electricity doesn't come from the power outlet, it comes from a power plant which in one way or the other influences the environment. It may sound like a drop in the ocean, but then again it's constant dripping wears away the stone.
Sounds about the same as what I pay. I can see your point as far as power usage goes but it really is such a drop in the bucket that it barely makes a difference. You will waste more electricity by forgetting to turn off a "normal" (can't remember the actual name) bulb than a running desktop.

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just put movement sensors in the hallways :dunno: perfect place for them really and the cost would probably be made back in the first year
It's true, my dorm was the same way but curiously bathrooms had motion sensors.
 
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During the day, the hallways in our dorms are fully lit. After about 8 or 9 pm, the overhead lights turn off and the lights along the lower part of the wall every few feet come on.

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And so it begins...
 
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electric heating! what is this, france!? :?

this appartment was made 1986, when power was cheaper, oil was cheaper, and we imported nuclear from cccp.
 
Since I torrented about 95% of my collection, that's probably true, they do OWN it where as I do not, but still...I'd not want to own 50,000 songs in a "physical" form since I'd need to buy a new house...

Also, CDs get scratched, CD players wear out, start to skip, give random "CD ERROR" errors, don't work when it's too cold or too hot, skip when you're driving over a bump.... all things that digital forms (MP3 player, USB stick) don't suffer from...

It's hard to go back to a car (or even house) with just a CD player and not even an AUX in... makes it feel like we're in the 90s...but apparently it's mostly me.

I imagine all of my colleagues have atleast 30 or 40 CDs (bought and paid for), with the cases AND the booklets cluttering up their car, while I have about 32GB (8.000 songs or around 600 CDs, I did the math) worth of stuff I got while sitting on my ass behind the computer, on something the size of my thumbnail, that's not even visible when it's inside my stereo...plus I can delete everything and put new stuff on it all in about 5-10 minutes...

/end rant here, moar new toys plz

Being the family "tech guy", it comes down to this: People who don't completely wrap their lives in tech can't be bothered with ripping and syncing and charging, whereas they can comprehend putting a disc in a slot.

My brother in law and my wife are two good examples. My wife just can't be bothered and actively refuses to learn anything about technology... I've tried forcing iPods on her multiple times. They sit in the glovebox depleted of charge. She has NEVER sat down to put her own music on it.

We got my brother in law a Sansa player a few years ago and as a courtesy I threw some stuff on there to get him started. That same content is still on there years later. He doesn't know jack about computers or digital music and it would be like teaching a dog about quantum physics to try. His wife knows at least a little about computers, as does their daughter's boyfriend but nobody will bother to help this guy out.

They expect YOU, the "tech guy", to do it. I have enough problems of my own managing my own media.

To us it's 2nd nature; to them it's a strange alien world they can't be bothered to learn.
 
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I don't think I've touched a CD (except to rip stuff off mix CDs my mom's given me) since about 2007... I just buy (or *ahem* acquire) everything online. Can't be bothered with a physical form.
 
I don't think I've touched a CD (except to rip stuff off mix CDs my mom's given me) since about 2007... I just buy (or *ahem* acquire) everything online. Can't be bothered with a physical form.

If I do buy music (I'll admit the temptation is there via torrents or what) I'll buy the CD so I can make a lossless FLAC/ALAC rip and store the original as a backup in a box in the basement. But the numbers have severely gone down over the years.

If/when iTunes/Amazon/et al do lossless I may reconsider.
 
Being the family "tech guy", it comes down to this: People who don't completely wrap their lives in tech can't be bothered with ripping and syncing and charging, whereas they can comprehend putting a disc in a slot.

My brother in law and my wife are two good examples. My wife just can't be bothered and actively refuses to learn anything about technology... I've tried forcing iPods on her multiple times. They sit in the glovebox depleted of charge. She has NEVER sat down to put her own music on it.

We got my brother in law a Sansa player a few years ago and as a courtesy I threw some stuff on there to get him started. That same content is still on there years later. He doesn't know jack about computers or digital music and it would be like teaching a dog about quantum physics to try. His wife knows at least a little about computers, as does their daughter's boyfriend but nobody will bother to help this guy out.

They expect YOU, the "tech guy", to do it. I have enough problems of my own managing my own media.

To us it's 2nd nature; to them it's a strange alien world they can't be bothered to learn.

This. My parents are fairly young 50 and 40 but just use CD's or the radio because it's simple. Even with a aux jack in the car and 2 smartphones...they just pop in CD's.

Until the CD slot disappears in more vehicles, this'll be the case for a long while.
 
My dad doesn't know his mouse from his keyboard, but somehow manages to understand and manage iTunes better than I do. He has since switched to his Android phone for playing music :dunno:
 
So after nearly four years it became apparent that I really needed a new laptop as mine just wasn't keeping up with what I wanted it to do. And here it is, HP Pavilion dv6:



So far impressions are very good. It runs very snappy, boots quickly, and can even run games at decent settings (Steam here I come!). I'm loving the keyboard but the click buttons on the touchpad feel weak and flimsy. Best of all the battery lasts longer than an hour which is more than could be said of my old laptop for a long time now. :lol: All-in-all I'm very happy with it for $450.

Some vitals:
2.8GHz AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M Accelerated Processor
15.6" diag HD BrightView LED back-lit display; 1366x768 resolution
8GB DDR3 SDRAM
750GB 5400 RPM hard drive
Blu-ray player; SuperMulti DVD burner
AMD Radeon HD 7640G
 
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