Computer heater

[Gearshredder]

Originally Posted by Erdrick

If you are using your computer to upload torrents or something like that though...

Srry, torrents arent safe nemore...

but yes.. for all that time my computer is on.. i prob be doin that.. and warm up my room faster

[omgwtfbyobbq]

If yer leaving it on crunching distributed stuff, maybe climateprediction.net is the most suitable, since the computer is likely powered by some form of FF electricity generation.

[SVOboy]

Get a macbook,

I need to close my laptop to move around between classes and such, can folding accommodate being stopped and restarted all the time?

[SVOboy]

A slight correction on the lightbulb thing that I recently heard from an ENVS professor is that incandescent bulbs are 5% efficient at creating light, and 95% at creating heat, whereas flourescents are 20% efficient at creating light and the rest goes to hear (and sometimes a little bit to noise).

*shrug*

[trebuchet03]

My understanding is that virtually all electric devices (not just computers, virtually ALL of them) have so close to 100% of their power ultimately end up as "waste heat", that it's not worth worrying about the difference!

This really isn't the case - especially when you consider how much work is being done. I've been trying to find actual % efficiency numbers for processors - but I think the actual numbers are kept secret. BUT, a great experiment for comparison can be found here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/09/...ls/page15.html

The Final chip completed/survived all benchmarking tests while having a higher wattage rating than another chip that was not able to complete the tests due to heat/temperatures.

All that said -- IF efficiency for all electronics were to be 5% - the size of a power supply to run a 50 watt processor would be 1000 watts. This clearly isn't the case. Power supply efficiency typically runs in excess of 80%

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Now, after saying all that.... You can say exactly what you said for ANYTHING given that the device is in a completely closed system. A car, for example, is say 30% efficient (comparing energy in to useful work). BUT, if you look at total waste heat emitted to the universe -- it's 0% efficient as brake heat, heat generated from air friction, etc. all generates heat.

What I'm getting at is - it's easily interpreted that all electronics have very low efficiency as stated (especially when compared to a heater @ 100% efficiency)

[88HF]

If you lost 100% the energy from electricity as heat then their would be no visible light from a bulb, no buzzing from a transformer, no signals to be picked up by radios, or sound to be heard from a speaker. Energy is manifested in numerous ways which are not heat.

[DracoFelis]

Originally Posted by trebuchet03

Now, after saying all that.... You can say exactly what you said for ANYTHING given that the device is in a completely closed system. A car, for example, is say 30% efficient (comparing energy in to useful work). BUT, if you look at total waste heat emitted to the universe -- it's 0% efficient as brake heat, heat generated from air friction, etc. all generates heat.

That's what I was thinking.

For example, you not only have waste heat from the power supply, but you also have waste heat generated from the electronics (CPU, RAM, etc) as a by-product of them doing their job. And when you add up all of those waste heat factors, I was under the impression that the total "waste heat" from the entire electric system was very close to the electric energy put in (with only a very small percentage of the input energy ultimately, after all steps/conversions are accounted for, ending up as anything other than heat energy).

And while I could be wrong, I thought that the with the vast majority of electric devices around the home, the energy (after doing any desired "work") eventually transforms into heat energy. As you pointed out, many times it will take multiple steps (for example, in a computer you move electrons around tiny electric "gates" to do "computations" before a lot of the energy ends up as heat), but ultimately "heat" is usually the form that the energy eventually ends up as. And as we all know, we don't create/destroy energy, we just convert it from one form to another (raising "entropy" in the process).

Of course, another poster on this thread pointed out that there are other possibilities. For example, the energy could be released into the environment as some other form of radiation (i.e. for example, a radio transmitter releases energy as radio waves). And it's also possible to pipe the energy out of the area in some form. But for appliances in an enclosed space, the used energy has to radiate into the area somehow. And I was under the (possibly mistaken) impression that (with the exception of various RF "transmitters") almost all such energy eventually (often after several intermediate steps) becomes thermal radiation (i.e. "waste heat") into the local vicinity.

[Erdrick]

I think we are kind of heading in the wrong direction with this thread. We are talking about maxing out computers' CPU usage and whatnot... kind of the opposite of what this site stands for. Rather than talking about ways to use (or abuse in this case) technologies to make our lives better, why not think of ways to passively let nature help make our existence a more pleasant one? Better sun exposure and things like this are infinitely better than electricity.

[GasSavers_Ryland]

If you are running A/C in the same building as you have a device that gives off heat like your computer does, then you are paying to creat that heat, and you are paying to remove that heat, so you are paying twice for your computer being on, dirrect venting your computer to the outdoors could help if it was cool enough out side, keeping the door of the room closed will help, but unless you have no insulation in the walls, or a window open, it still has an affect on the load of the A/C, a LCD moniter will help cut power used, letting the computer go in to a sleep mode will help, but biggest of all is turning off the computer, I highly recomend getting a watt hour meter that you can plug your computer in to, I suspect that your electrical savings over the course of a year will off set the cost of the meter.

[DracoFelis]

Originally Posted by Erdrick

I think we are kind of heading in the wrong direction with this thread.

I disagree. This site is about energy efficiency. And if you find that you "need" some extra heat in the winter, why not get that heat + get something else useful (even if it's just "SETI at home" or some other "common good calculations") done?

i.e. If (and only if) you are going to pay for electric heat anyway (to heat your house), than why not do it with some appliance (that you can get something else "useful" out of), vs just using something that only produces heat? And even if that "something useful" is just helping with some community computation project ("SETI at home", or something similar), you have still gotten something useful "for the community" done along with producing the heat you desire.

Of course, the above assumes that you need to heat your house, and that you were planning to use electricity to do it. If either of those assumptions are incorrect, than the conclusion is also incorrect. For example, if you don't need the heat right now (i.e. it's not winter, or you get enough heat from other sources), than running more appliances just generates more "waste heat" that you don't need. Likewise, even when you do need the heat, you may have a source of heat that is cheaper to use than electric heating (in which case it may be more "efficient" to use that other source of heat). But if you really do need the heat, and your main viable option is simple electric heating, I think it's at least worth considering getting that heat from an appliance that you also get some useful "work" out of...

NOTE:
As another poster (correctly) mentioned, during the warm months you actually get bit twice, when you run an electric appliance. i.e. You pay for the electric to run the appliance, and again for the AC to remove the heat generated by running the appliance.

But the point I was making, is that it works both ways. In the cold months, you actually get a "free bonus" of sorts, in that while you pay the electric to run your appliance, you also get very useful (useful ONLY when it is cold out) "waste heat" off that appliance. This essentially gives you two useful properties (whatever the appliance is designed to do + the "bonus" of the "waste heat") while only paying for the electric (to run the appliance) once (essentially giving you a 2-for-1 with your electric energy dollar).