Dell will not ship Gaming PCs to these states

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"This product cannot be shipped to the states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to power consumption regulations adopted by those states. Any orders placed that are bound for those states will be canceled."

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/gaming-and-games/sr/game-desktops/alienware-desktops

alienware.png
 
I've not bought from dell in a while (well nearly 15 years now). I wonder if any other online retailer or local stores carry it.
 
Interesting. I wonder what the power consumption regulations look like?

If you absolutely have to regulate power use, it would seem to me, the way to do it would not be to tell people how to use their power, but to instead just disincentivize high use, and let people figure out what is importnat to them, and what isn't on their own.
 
I mean, the west coast states make sense, they can't seem to go more than a month or two without some major fire caused by faulty electrical lines, and rolling blackouts from excessive power consumption.

Hawaii also makes sense because it's islands.

But... Vermont? They have all of the power they need and then some, unless I'm missing something.

Surprised Texas isn't on the list with all of the power problems we've been having lately. Had a blackout the other day that lasted for over an hour, least it wasn't 20 degrees outside..
 
I mean, the west coast states make sense, they can't seem to go more than a month or two without some major fire caused by faulty electrical lines, and rolling blackouts from excessive power consumption.

Hawaii also makes sense because it's islands.

But... Vermont? They have all of the power they need and then some, unless I'm missing something.

Surprised Texas isn't on the list with all of the power problems we've been having lately. Had a blackout the other day that lasted for over an hour, least it wasn't 20 degrees outside..
Think you need to look at the political parties that run the states listed ;) That may be why Texas isn't on the list.
 
They already do. It's called an electric bill.

Yeah, but there are ways you can further disincentivize high use through various methods.

Most commmon is probably the tiered approach. The first 600KWh per month are super cheap per KwH. Then each tier after that gets increasingly expensive. Sort of like tax brackets.
 
Yeah, but there are ways you can further disincentivize high use through various methods.

Most commmon is probably the tiered approach. The first 600KWh per month are super cheap per KwH. Then each tier after that gets increasingly expensive. Sort of like tax brackets.
I am definitely glad I am on a time-of-use basis. Used 2900kwh last month lol
 
I am definitely glad I am on a time-of-use basis. Used 2900kwh last month lol

Yeah, I wish Time of Use were more common here. You can get it, but you have to demonstrate a crazy amount of use to qualify, which means in practical terms it is only used by businesses :/

My problem is I just like computers and air conditioning too much :p
 
https://appliance-standards.org/product/computers-and-computer-systems

Although there are no national standards for computers, DOE did initiate a rulemaking, issuing a request for information in 2012 and a proposed determination of coverage in February 2014. The California Energy Commission (CEC) adopted standards for these products in December 2016. The standards apply to high expandability desktops, mobile workstations, small scale servers, and workstation computers manufactured on or after January 1, 2018 and all other covered computer types manufactured on and after January 1, 2019, with higher efficiency requirements for desktops, integrated desktops, thin clients, and gaming notebooks for products manufactured on or after July 1, 2021. Based on CEC’s estimates for California, if manufacturers sold only compliant computers and monitors across the U.S. nationally, savings would reach up to 20,000 gigawatt hours of electricity annually by 2027, or enough to supply 1.6 million U.S. homes.

Vermont, Washington, and Colorado adopted computer and monitor standards set to go into effect in 2020 (VT) and 2021 (WA and CO)

Doesn't seem to affect home builts, just premades.
 
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Image 22 within § 1605.3. State Standards for Non-Federally-Regulated Appliances.Image 23 within § 1605.3. State Standards for Non-Federally-Regulated Appliances.
(6) Small-scale servers, high expandability computers, mobile workstations, and workstations. Small-scale servers, high expandability computers, mobile workstations, and workstations manufactured on or after January 1, 2018, shall:

(A) Be powered by an internal power supply that meets or exceeds the standards in Table V-9, or an external power supply that meets the level VI of efficiency described in the International Efficiency Marking Protocol for External Power Supplies Version 3.0 (Sept. 2013);

(B) Incorporate Energy-Efficient Ethernet functionality;

(C) Transition connected displays into sleep mode within 15 minutes of user inactivity; and

(D) Transition the computer into either the computer sleep mode or computer off mode measured in section 1604(v)(4) of this Article within 30 minutes of user inactivity. If the transition is to a computer sleep mode, that sleep mode shall either:

1. Be a computer sleep mode as described in ACPI as S3; or

2. Consume power less than or equal to the values shown in Table V-6.

Dell is using low-efficiency power supplies I suspect, although I'm not finding one of the tables they reference (one I did find says that my workstation can consume no more than 13W, which... is nonsensical).
 
I haven't really been ever tempted to buy a prebuild. But after watching GamersNexus tear down an Alienware machine that set them back $1800, they would more or less have to pay me to want to use their poorly built garbage. Literally the only reason to buy any prebuilt right now is to gut it for parts - and Dell is putting people over the barrel for garbage machines.

The fact that I can't get one of these machines to CA I'd say is a good thing. Maybe n00bs can start asking more/better questions and get a computer from somewhere else.

 
Interesting. I wonder what the power consumption regulations look like?

If you absolutely have to regulate power use, it would seem to me, the way to do it would not be to tell people how to use their power, but to instead just disincentivize high use, and let people figure out what is importnat to them, and what isn't on their own.
Or it's not the government's job to tell anyone how much power they can or can not use. As already stated, paying the electric bill is the only relevant metric.

If governments want to stop blackouts and brownouts they need to stop disincentivizing the building of new power plants and stop forcing the closure of perfectly good power plants.
 
This seems conservative/political by Dell. Wonder what's motivating this? Business and politics don't mix. I feel the same way about Nike, Coke, P&G (BLM support) and Dick's, Walmart (anti-2A) stances. Since the country is almost evenly divided, they lose half their customer base, whichever side they pick. Companies should stay neutral.
Or it's not the government's job to tell anyone how much power they can or can not use. As already stated, paying the electric bill is the only relevant metric.

If governments want to stop blackouts and brownouts they need to stop disincentivizing the building of new power plants and stop forcing the closure of perfectly good power plants.
i.e. San Onofre and Diablo Canyon.

The fruits and nuts want to do this so they can claim "climate change" and need to raise taxes for windmills / green jobs. A few nuclear plants would fix the country right up, but the NIMBYers won't let it happen, in some states.
 
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I can't help but be amused by this, but then again it's an ominous sign, as cancer does spread. Presumably it will be a while before the sale of component parts gets regulated out of existence, but it might just be a matter of time.
 
Dell is using low-efficiency power supplies I suspect, although I'm not finding one of the tables they reference (one I did find says that my workstation can consume no more than 13W, which... is nonsensical).

Dell has had the same 3-4 companies making their PSUs for decades, and they're consistently shit, so yes.

Delta, HEC, Liteon and Bestec. Basically the trashiest of the trash PSU makers. Before even considering power efficiency, they need to make them so they don't explode first.
 
The Alienware systems are still using ATX PSU's from what I have seen and not the new 12vo spec, so it doesn't meet the low power standby requirements unless that is a top-end Platinum PSU in there which let's face it they aren't.
 
Dell has had the same 3-4 companies making their PSUs for decades, and they're consistently shit, so yes.

Delta, HEC, Liteon and Bestec. Basically the trashiest of the trash PSU makers. Before even considering power efficiency, they need to make them so they don't explode first.

Umm, Delta has long been a maker of good PSUs. I don't doubt that they make cheap ones, any Dell may order those in their towers, but they make some high end Titanium server PSUs that'll run 24/7/365 at high load, no problems.
 
I can see the entire country pass a new and extremely strict power consumption regulation on a national level. And if the CPU and GPU makers don't hurry up and come up with a more efficient architecture, then the entire PC industry will collapse - colossally. System performance will actually plummet - even far below the level of an old Haswell CPU. And this will have ripple effects across the rest of the tech and consumer electronics industries: There will be no more new 4k TVs, HD TVs or even big screen TVs; that is, all TVs will revert back to standard definition (480p) and very-small-screened.

Unfortunately, the other direction is also undesirable: I am now associating uncontrolled performance progress (power consumption required to be increased) with arrogance.
 
I can see the entire country pass a new and extremely strict power consumption regulation on a national level. And if the CPU and GPU makers don't hurry up and come up with a more efficient architecture, then the entire PC industry will collapse - colossally. System performance will actually plummet - even far below the level of an old Haswell CPU. And this will have ripple effects across the rest of the tech and consumer electronics industries: There will be no more new 4k TVs or even HD TVs; that is, all TVs will revert back to standard definition (480p).

Unfortunately, the other direction is also undesirable: I am now associating uncontrolled performance progress (power consumption required to be increased) with arrogance.
Lolwut?
 
There will be no more new 4k TVs or even HD TVs; that is, all TVs will revert back to standard definition (480p).
Displays don't really use that much power, and I don't think it is tied to the resolution anyhow (but I could be wrong).
 
Umm, Delta has long been a maker of good PSUs. I don't doubt that they make cheap ones, any Dell may order those in their towers, but they make some high end Titanium server PSUs that'll run 24/7/365 at high load, no problems.

If your favorite candy bar fell into a fresh steaming liquid pile of cow shit, would you still pull it out and eat it? The same applies with Delta. If they have any good proprietary/non-ATX server supplies, they're tainted by the exploding shit that is their consumer grade units. Not that a proprietary/non-ATX power supply has any relevance in the desktop computer market to begin with.

As someone who has had to put a Delta PSU out with a fire extinguisher, and watch another go on fire in front of me *doing absolutely nothing*, I will continue to call them garbage. I also forgot to mention they use trash tier capacitors from companies like OST, Teapo and CapXon.
 
Yeah, but there are ways you can further disincentivize high use through various methods.

Most commmon is probably the tiered approach. The first 600KWh per month are super cheap per KwH. Then each tier after that gets increasingly expensive. Sort of like tax brackets.
Speaking of California, they have been using the tiered approach for a long time. The "problem" is the tier levels are based on your region and how your predominately heat your home. Me living in a coastal city that has mild temps year round and natural gas I'm not expected to use much power at all, where as somewhere like the Central Valley which has hellish summer temps and no natural gas for winters they have a relatively high amount.

That's the first problem, the second is that first tier is anything but cheap, like more expensive than anywhere but Hawaii expensive, and if you go into higher tiers more expensive than Hawaii.

But...
I am definitely glad I am on a time-of-use basis. Used 2900kwh last month lol
... California is getting forced TOU down our throats. Really simple too, 4-9pm is high demand, every other time is off peak. But off peak is still quite expensive, and there still will be a tiered structure in place. So no getting a flywheel going to save energy for later... besides the difference in price is hardly worth it unless you had really go efficiency.

It really is the anti solar response pushed by the power companies on the public utility commission, as if people are really going to conserve more from 4 to 9, they will just end up paying more for electricity and have to pay solar producers less.
 
I can see the entire country pass a new and extremely strict power consumption regulation on a national level. And if the CPU and GPU makers don't hurry up and come up with a more efficient architecture, then the entire PC industry will collapse - colossally. System performance will actually plummet - even far below the level of an old Haswell CPU. And this will have ripple effects across the rest of the tech and consumer electronics industries: There will be no more new 4k TVs, HD TVs or even big screen TVs; that is, all TVs will revert back to standard definition (480p) and very-small-screened.

Unfortunately, the other direction is also undesirable: I am now associating uncontrolled performance progress (power consumption required to be increased) with arrogance.
This is exactly why the 12VO spec exists, to meet those new and stricter regulations. The ATX spec can do it, but it takes a far more expensive high quality one to do it where they can be met at 12VO for like $50.
It’s also why we should expect to see more ARM based options in the near future.
If you are in one of the industries that has to deal with carbon credits and audits on power consumption then you’ve probably seriously considered the Apple M1 units for the low power draws and the credits they can save. The only reason we didn’t was because Apple couldn’t source us enough of their 24” iMacs for us to do a complete deployment.
 
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This seems conservative/political by Dell. Wonder what's motivating this? Business and politics don't mix. I feel the same way about Nike, Coke, P&G (BLM support) and Dick's, Walmart (anti-2A) stances. Since the country is almost evenly divided, they lose half their customer base, whichever side they pick. Companies should stay neutral.

i.e. San Onofre and Diablo Canyon.

The fruits and nuts want to do this so they can claim "climate change" and need to raise taxes for windmills / green jobs. A few nuclear plants would fix the country right up, but the NIMBYers won't let it happen, in some states.

It's not politically motivated. If it was they would have said something. It has basically gone under the radar, no announcement from Dell or anything, just suddenly not selling them to certain states.
It sounds more like a oh shit we can't sell these there anymore according to the law and they did what needed to be done on the website.

If it was actually political (it's not) it would be even dumber than the polarizing BLM support, etc. other companies have done. They're simply not selling their product to those states. With those stupid political stances they're trying still trying to sell products.
No one is going "Ha ha Dell is so based they aren't selling select models to commifornians! I'm totally buying a Dell now".
 
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Dell is using low-efficiency power supplies I suspect, although I'm not finding one of the tables they reference (one I did find says that my workstation can consume no more than 13W, which... is nonsensical).

Table V-6 is for sleep mode requirements. In your case, it means that your workstation can't consume more than 13 watts in sleep mode. I'm sure Table V-9 is just minimum efficiency requirements, which I say is a good thing.
 
I was assuming that higher resolution requires much, much more processing power than low resolution. And big-screen TVs still draw hundreds of watts of electrical power from the wall.
Not at all; most TVs, even at 75" use less than 100W on average and maybe up to 300W max if it's an OLED displaying an all-white screen at peak brightness (rare).

The biggest power draws by far in most households are HVAC systems and any appliances with a heating element (dryer, water heater, oven, etc). So I think these are where most people and power companies should be focusing on in order to reduce power draw.

Also, with EVs becoming more popular, I'm not sure how the west coast states (like CA) mandating that EVs become required by 2034 plan to support these EVs that draw 5-20kW of power for several hours, when they can't even consistently support their current load. Charging an EV at 5+ kW draws more power than pretty much anything else in your house and they're supposed to somehow support whole neighborhoods and towns with EVs in just over a decade..? Doesn't seem feasible to be at all.
 
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Also, with EVs becoming more popular, I'm not sure how the west coast states (like CA) mandating that EVs become required by 2034 plan to support these EVs that draw 5-20kW of power for several hours, when they can't even consistently support their current load. Charging an EV at 5+ kW draws more power than pretty much anything else in your house and they're supposed to somehow support whole neighborhoods and towns with EVs in just over a decade..? Doesn't seem feasible to be at all.

It's simple, they won't be able to support them. They would need to spend well over a trillion dollars starting right now to have even a small glimmer of hope of supporting a tiny percentage of the state using EVs by 2034. They'd need dozens of new high capacity power plants and to replace basically every part of the entire power grid. But even assuming they pulled that off, and it'd never happen, they'd just be moving pollution from one area to another. They'll probably start to have to gobble up power from outside the state from whoever will sell it to them.

With how badly managed and underfunded their grid is right now, things are only going to get worse. If the droughts and heat continue, they're going to have endless fires from powerline failures.
 
Think you need to look at the political parties that run the states listed ;) That may be why Texas isn't on the list.
When telling Texans that running residential sprinklers constantly when farmers can't water crops in a drought is met with violent indignation, telling them they can't burn a few more Kwhs a year for video games in a common power-outage is going to go over even worse. Mah freedoms and such.
 
It's simple, they won't be able to support them. They would need to spend well over a trillion dollars starting right now to have even a small glimmer of hope of supporting a tiny percentage of the state using EVs by 2034. They'd need dozens of new high capacity power plants and to replace basically every part of the entire power grid. But even assuming they pulled that off, and it'd never happen, they'd just be moving pollution from one area to another. They'll probably start to have to gobble up power from outside the state from whoever will sell it to them.

With how badly managed and underfunded their grid is right now, things are only going to get worse. If the droughts and heat continue, they're going to have endless fires from powerline failures.
Indeed, pretty much the conclusion I came to as well. It's amazing how backwards-thinking these state governors and leaders can be on major legislation and issues like this.
 
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