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Why I'm now a skull :(

A

ArionIscariot

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 7, 2005
Messages
65
Hey fellas,

I live in a basement suite and I'm having a minor dispute with the landlord regarding the jump up in the power bill. The suite is brand new so she has no real usage data to base this against, but she's regretfully placing the blame on F@H. I'm quite willing to pay the additional costs of electricity caused by folding, but I know that folding and regular household usage absolutely cannot add up to the ballooning total on her power bill. She's threatening to raise the rent and if she does that.. well I'd have to move. As a starving university student moving's just not in my budget right now.

Personally, I think she's overloaded the old panel in this house and I'm concerned with the quality of the mains power. It's definitely out of the 60 Hz range and I think it may be over-volted by a substantial amount, as well. I dont have a multi-meter to verify with, but the fridge runs too cold, the stove runs too hot and the previously clean s-video feed from my computer has developed those tell-tale rolling bars, but hey, what do I know, right? :p

I'll have some production back in late August when I can place borgs with friends and I'm hopeful that this can be resolved quickly and amicably. So that I can fire up my folding boxen again as soon as possible. Sorry, bros. :(

 
Chill.

Just send your lanlord's addres to K*. He will "convince" her to our cause. :D
 
I'd say buy/borrow/beg a multimeter and find out what the incoming voltage is like. Then do the same for a kill-a-watt and find out what the computers are drawing. Look around, find out what's drawing all the power. Then bring that to her attention.

Any way you look at it, bad incoming power is a bad thing for both you and her. It's definitely in her best interest to fix this before the house burns down. If she's not being reasonable after you show her what's going on, move immediately.

 
One lesson I've learned in life, is all land lords are slum lords.

Good luck with a battle you can't win.
 
marty9876 said:
One lesson I've learned in life, is all land lords are slum lords.

Good luck with a battle you can't win.
Click to expand...

Mine is a really great guy, I've rented 2 different houses from him and he's just awesome. I know he'll be the only good one I ever have so I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
 
If you're in the D.C. area, and know how to use one without blowing it the hell up, I have a Oscilloscope you could use.
 
how many computers did you have runnning? and about what "type"?
If they are old and inefficient, it actually can add up. Although, chances are the power company raised the rates.
I live in MA, and I have family in CT, and we all got a electric bill rate hike. Son's of a .............

Anyway! If you really want something fun to play with, get a 30$ kill-a-watt (seasonic makes a copy cat also). It will tell you the approximate frequency, voltage, power, current, VA's, and KWH usage based on a timer. Came in very helpful to convince the parents that "all these computers" running does not actually ammount to much.

Heck, with some laptops, even 3 of them don't ammount to a 100watt light bulb's power consumption.

~Hope this helps
 
Additionally, she may not realize it's focking SUMMERTIME and that A/C costs money. My Electrical bill jumped from $75/mo (mar, apr & may) to $170 for June and $230 for July. Doesn't help that our apartment is the top two floors of the building, and that heat rises. Damn laws of physics.
 
ArionIscariot said:
Hey fellas,

I live in a basement suite and I'm having a minor dispute with the landlord regarding the jump up in the power bill. The suite is brand new so she has no real usage data to base this against, but she's regretfully placing the blame on F@H. I'm quite willing to pay the additional costs of electricity caused by folding, but I know that folding and regular household usage absolutely cannot add up to the ballooning total on her power bill. She's threatening to raise the rent and if she does that.. well I'd have to move. As a starving university student moving's just not in my budget right now.

Personally, I think she's overloaded the old panel in this house and I'm concerned with the quality of the mains power. It's definitely out of the 60 Hz range and I think it may be over-volted by a substantial amount, as well. I dont have a multi-meter to verify with, but the fridge runs too cold, the stove runs too hot and the previously clean s-video feed from my computer has developed those tell-tale rolling bars, but hey, what do I know, right? :p

I'll have some production back in late August when I can place borgs with friends and I'm hopeful that this can be resolved quickly and amicably. So that I can fire up my folding boxen again as soon as possible. Sorry, bros. :(

Click to expand...

Ok, first the 60 htz part. All AC in the US is 60 htz, it’s not an option and no matter how bad the breaker box or fuse box is or no matter how overloaded it might or might not be it’s still going to be 60 htz.

May of this year I shut down 5 machines in my farm for one billing cycle and my bill showed a1150 KWH drop in usage. If you do the math, use a Kill-0-Watt etc it makes no sense but over the next few months the reading was consistently 1150 KWH lower.

At $.10 per hour (my current rate) 1150 KWH amounted to quite a drop in my bill.

Yes, I tested each machine, yes I showed the electric company those machines could not have used that much power and yes, in their polite corporate way I got told to piss off. They even sent a rep to my house to “test” my power usage and I was told, “You should be grateful it’s not higher”

If you think the power company is bad, try the PUC. I won’t even go into that story.

The only answer I can get from either entity is, for a fee they will “test my meter” but “There is every possibility you could end up with a meter that reads even higher”. That doesn’t even qualify as a veiled threat; it’s an outright threat.

When it comes to utilities we are owned, period. :(
 
BillR said:
When it comes to utilities we are owned, period. :(
Click to expand...
So true... damn monopolies. :mad:

I guess our rates arent too bad for how much energy use. I mean the AC plays a HUGE role in your power bill, which is no excpetion for ours. (seeing how it runs constantly)
 
DaRkF0g said:
So true... damn monopolies. :mad:

I guess our rates arent too bad for how much energy use. I mean the AC plays a HUGE role in your power bill, which is no excpetion for ours. (seeing how it runs constantly)
Click to expand...

Seriously. AC and boxen do NOT mix... I'd seriously almost reccomend what I'm considering doing, and getting a little mini-fridge from a yard sale, and running a massive water reservoir through it. Strangely enough, the AC costs far far more to run than the AC, and for a cheap fridge that burns out every once in a while, I'd be perfectly content shelling out a hundred bucks for one of those every six months.
 
A mini fridge won't be able to support anything more than a Celeron-A. If you want a cheap watercooling setup, then try buying a whole bunch of cheap blocks or making simple blocks yourself, and run the blocks in series with an Eheim or other reliable pump, and use the biggest car heater core you can buy/find at a junkyard. Preferably, you could bury the heater core underground outside, making things pretty simple as long as you have a bunch of tubing and a big reservoir. For ideas, look here.

 
If you are concerned about the power then I suggest you get yourself a small UPS, whilst this will save your PC from those spikes, it will also tell you the average power consumption - and hence very easy to calculate exactly how musch power you are using.

To give you some idea - P4 @ 2.4G, 3x 10K SCSI discs + 3x 7.2K IDE disks - plus two 17" TFT is about 135W at idle - spiking upto about 210W at load. N.B when I had a 17" CRT on this the power consumption was 230W at idle!
 
ikellensbro said:
A mini fridge won't be able to support anything more than a Celeron-A. If you want a cheap watercooling setup, then try buying a whole bunch of cheap blocks or making simple blocks yourself, and run the blocks in series with an Eheim or other reliable pump, and use the biggest car heater core you can buy/find at a junkyard. Preferably, you could bury the heater core underground outside, making things pretty simple as long as you have a bunch of tubing and a big reservoir. For ideas, look here.

Click to expand...

Good point, and I'm probably going to be getting the radiator off a Penske truck at some point. One of the big giant ones, too. All I need to do is find a nice pump with enough head and I'll be watercooling my tower and my laptop.
 
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