Thank You!!!!

I want to thank Cocoontech and CQC for the Christmas present! I've spent the last week reading everything I could on CQC and it's time to get started trying to install the program onto a computer.

I've read so much and watched the videos, I'm thoroughly confused but ready to start learning.

What I want to do is to install CQC onto a computer. The one I want to use is an older xp (2.8 GHz Pentium 4, 79 gb drive). Right now it's the kids computer and they have it packed full of games, pics and iTunes. It barely runs with all of the junk. They got a new computer from Santa so I can clean this one up and do what I want with it.

So my first question is, do you think this will work? I plan on moving the pics to a thumb drive and iTunes to their new computer, but how is the best way to clean everything else out?

honestly, a reformat is the best way to clean it up - if you're up for it. You want your automation PC to be as clean/stable as possible. And, it's generally faster!

Congrats!

Absolutely, reformat and re-install the OS. It's the only way to be sure you have cleaned everything out. Also, if the machine will be hooked up to the internet make sure you install all the patches and anti-virus software.

What they said

If you reinstall the OS, you should be all set. CPU wise, CQC won't need much, and can run on lesser hardware just fine. Congrats again on winning the giveaway!

If you're going to wipe the computer and start over ANYWAY, you may want to consider upgrading to a modern ultra-low-power computer.

Here's why: A Home Automation machine runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Pentium D 2.8GHz computer will cost you AT LEAST $175/year to operate. If you usually go way over your "baseline" electricity usage, your rates go sky high and it could be $700-$900/year.

On the other hand, an inexpensive "net top" machine will cost < $250, and use 1/8th the power. That's $31/year (best case) to $150/year (worst case). Pays for itself in < 18 months on cheap power, and in 4 months on expensive power.



Here's the math: The Pentium D 2.8Ghz CPU can use up to 95 watts of power alone. The whole computer (including video, all peripherals, hard drive, power supply conversion losses) could be 200-250 watts or more

Assuming you pay $0.10 per kilowatt/hour, that's 2-2.5 cents an hour every hour of every day (in addition to higher air conditioning bills in the summer, which are only slightly offset by reduced heating costs in the winter). That's $175-$220 per year, and that's assuming cheap power.

If your electrical use regularly goes way beyond the electric company's "baseline", you could be paying $0.40 or $0.50 per kilowatt/hour. In this case, that's $700-$900 per year.

On the other hand, that really basic "net-top" computer will cost < $250. It will use 35 watts of power, instead of 200-250w, and cost $31 (assuming cheap $0.10/kw) to $153 (assuming expensive $0.50/kw) to run.

Odeen said:

If you're going to wipe the computer and start over ANYWAY, you may want to consider upgrading to a modern ultra-low-power computer.

Here's why: A Home Automation machine runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Pentium D 2.8GHz computer will cost you AT LEAST $175/year to operate. If you usually go way over your "baseline" electricity usage, your rates go sky high and it could be $700-$900/year.

On the other hand, an inexpensive "net top" machine will cost < $250, and use 1/8th the power. That's $31/year (best case) to $150/year (worst case). Pays for itself in < 18 months on cheap power, and in 4 months on expensive power.



Here's the math: The Pentium D 2.8Ghz CPU can use up to 95 watts of power alone. The whole computer (including video, all peripherals, hard drive, power supply conversion losses) could be 200-250 watts or more

Assuming you pay $0.10 per kilowatt/hour, that's 2-2.5 cents an hour every hour of every day (in addition to higher air conditioning bills in the summer, which are only slightly offset by reduced heating costs in the winter). That's $175-$220 per year, and that's assuming cheap power.

If your electrical use regularly goes way beyond the electric company's "baseline", you could be paying $0.40 or $0.50 per kilowatt/hour. In this case, that's $700-$900 per year.

On the other hand, that really basic "net-top" computer will cost < $250. It will use 35 watts of power, instead of 200-250w, and cost $31 (assuming cheap $0.10/kw) to $153 (assuming expensive $0.50/kw) to run.

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Thanks, now I don't even want to put my 8th computer back online...

=)

Vaughn

Reformat and start playing today!!! When you are ready to get an efficient computer, transfer the configurations to the new machine. Your kids have obviously already been using this machine, and depending on how much (e.g. was it always on?) you may not even notice a difference in power costs. There is no time like the present to start learning and getting this in place... you are wasting precious time already!!!

Odeen said:

Here's the math: The Pentium D 2.8Ghz CPU can use up to 95 watts of power alone. The whole computer (including video, all peripherals, hard drive, power supply conversion losses) could be 200-250 watts or more

Assuming you pay $0.10 per kilowatt/hour, that's 2-2.5 cents an hour every hour of every day (in addition to higher air conditioning bills in the summer, which are only slightly offset by reduced heating costs in the winter). That's $175-$220 per year, and that's assuming cheap power.

If your electrical use regularly goes way beyond the electric company's "baseline", you could be paying $0.40 or $0.50 per kilowatt/hour. In this case, that's $700-$900 per year.

On the other hand, that really basic "net-top" computer will cost < $250. It will use 35 watts of power, instead of 200-250w, and cost $31 (assuming cheap $0.10/kw) to $153 (assuming expensive $0.50/kw) to run.

Click to expand...

I do have a question about CQC and how it would relate to a machines power consumption. If CQC is such a low-power program, particularly in the sense that it doesnt need much (minimum system requirements) to run in the first place... How/why would it cost soooo much to run this computer? You say that it COULD draw up to 95W, which I assume is the max draw of that processor... is CQC actually going to do that??? Yes, a new machine will likely be more efficient, but are there any real-world numbers that show [meaningful] cost savings with a new machine?

Last year I scrapped my old system (2.8GHz P4 w/ HT) machine, which I let run 24/7 and never went into any full sleep mode, with a 3.0GHz Core2Quad, which now goes in a much more efficient "sleep" mode in which nothing is running and I have seen no cost difference at all - except maybe a few pennies, but I haven't exactly tried to count those.

Odeen,

Have you checked your math against a Kill-A-Watt? I did a test on my wife's desktop (which she NEVER used) at my old house which was $.11/kwh - and it was about $5/month ($60/year) - meaning at my current house in which I'm always at least a little into the upper tier at $.40/kwh, that computer is costing me closer to $20/month, or $240/year. Granted, this was an efficient business HP desktop... it's probably different than something like my home-built HTPC that's overpowered in every way possible...

Just curious - those numbers seem WAY high. That said, in this house we went from 5 always-on desktops down to 1 with VMWare on it (the one I'm typing on now) - and it's hooked to a Belkin Conserve power strip which turns off the quad displays, sound system, and my Cisco IP phone - when not in use. I still need to get that kill-a-watt up here to see the difference - I haven't ever checked this system.

Just curious if you're going by potential values or actual measurements, and what kind of system you may have measured. That said, I'm completely behind you on using ultra-low power devices for things that just sit around doing very little... and those net-tops are awesome. Soon I expect Elve will make its way to a Fit2PC I have laying around just to keep it small, isolated, and using very little juice.

I would have to agree with Work2Play on the power consumption; the calculations in Odeen's post are not correct.

A 95W processor does not consume 95W 120V AC. Instead, that's how many watts it consumes in DC from the computer's power supply. The wattage rating of computer components and computer power supplies are rated at the 12V DC level and does not directly correlate to the AC power consumption of the power supply.

Regardless of the calculations, Odeen makes some very good points and a more modern, low power computer will be better suited for your application in the long run in both cost and also heat generation.

kdub said:

I would have to agree with Work2Play on the power consumption; the calculations in Odeen's post are not correct.

A 95W processor does not consume 95W 120V AC. Instead, that's how many watts it consumes in DC from the computer's power supply. The wattage rating of computer components and computer power supplies are rated at the 12V DC level and does not directly correlate to the AC power consumption of the power supply.

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I will concede that I wasn't clear when I called the Pentium D a "95W" processor. It is a processor that can draw UP TO 95W, but draws significantly more power at idle than its contemporaries from AMD (Athlon64 X2), or the subsequent Intel Core2 Duo chips.

Also, watts is basically watts (with some adjustments for "volt-amps" which aren't the same as watts for AC).
A "perfect" voltage converter can convert X number of watts from one voltage level to another, and rectify from AC to DC. For instance, it can go from 120 volts / 1 amp to 12 volts / 10 amps. The wattage, or the amount of "work" stays the same, just the form of it changes.

It's like the gears on your bicycle - you're pedaling at a certain speed, but the rear wheel spins at a different speed.

A "95W" Thermal Design Power (TDP) chip can draw UP TO 95 watts (yes, it's usually less). At different voltage levels it translates into a different number of amps needed, but volts * amps is "up to" 95.

The Pentium D runs at 1.2 to 1.4 volts. The motherboard voltage regulators supply up to 95/1.2, or 79 amps (!!!!!) of power to the CPU. Here's an example of a MOSFET voltage regulator specifically designed for CPU power supplies:
http://www.st.com/stonline/books/pdf/docs/6822.pdf

These voltage regulators convert the +12V DC supplied to the motherboard down to the required CPU voltage. Most motherboards have 3-4 power "phases", so you'd see a few of these power regulators around your CPU socket.

In turn, the power supply converts 120V AC from the wall into 3.3V, 5V and 12V DC voltages that the computer runs on. Power supplies are not perfect, and I wouldn't be surprised that the OP's PSU is about 75% efficient.


If you add up the power requirements of the memory, the motherboard, hard drive(s), video card, and other peripherals, multiply that by power supply losses (PSU's of the Pentium D era were typically 75-80% efficient), you'll get a figure around 200W for a computer sitting around doing nothing. I'll look up some system reviews from that era that have system power draw figures when I have more time to back this up....

you computer uses whatever your power supply is rated
if your power supply is 300 watts then you will be using .3 kw Per hour. if you have a monster gaming pc with a 1000 watt power supply then imagine leaving your microwave running 24/7
when your motherboard goes to energy saving mode then you won't be using all that wattage, it will depend on the system's design

most pc's gotta have at least a 300 watts power supply unless you are running a laptop or a very small form factor computer like a Mac mini

panamanian said:

you computer uses whatever your power supply is rated
if your power supply is 300 watts then you will be using .3 kw Per hour. if you have a monster gaming pc with a 1000 watt power supply then imagine leaving your microwave running 24/7
when your motherboard goes to energy saving mode then you won't be using all that wattage, it will depend on the system's design

most pc's gotta have at least a 300 watts power supply unless you are running a laptop or a very small form factor computer like a Mac mini

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This is not true. The power supply is rated to output UP TO that amount of power, but it will only consume the power drawn from the computers components + it's losses due to inefficiency.

That would be the same as saying that the power supplied to your house (the power supply) is 1.21Jigga-Watts (obviously, fictitious) because that is what the company can provide to your house. However, it is the components inside your home that draw the power the require to operate, and that is what is delivered/metered/billed.

I'm sorry I forgot to mention that I would assume the maximum rated power supply to calculate my operating cost, it would be hard to know for sure how much I would be using for sure since the HA software has to run 24/7
when I used to have pc's in the past and they were running 24/7 that became a big chunk of my power bill unless they went into standby mode but that's not desirable if your HA software has to be on 24/7 and how well that Software's code is optimized to not heavily tax the processor so it doesnt use more power.

let me put this in context. a small form factor pc like a SHUTTLE XPC has a power supply of 250 watts listed on their website, they don't list it as the maximum power comsuption.

an APPLE MAC MINI is listed to have a maximum power comsuption of 85 watts.

so if I want to spend the least amount of power a year running my HA I would get a Mac mini install bootcamp on it to basically convert it into a full windows box or run VMWare or Parallels and run windows in virtual mode knowing that the max amount of power at full capacity would be 85 watts.

yes the Mac mini is 600 bucks as opposed to a shuttle pc that could cost 200 less but if you factor in the power bill over time it looks like a viable option

that's why a lot people out there are using them in their cars because they can get a small power inverter an run a full capability computer without any hasstle as wells as people using them as home media server, or SAN's etc

panamanian said:

I'm sorry I forgot to mention that I would assume the maximum rated power supply to calculate my operating cost, it would be hard to know for sure how much I would be using for sure since the HA software has to run 24/7
when I used to have pc's in the past and they were running 24/7 that became a big chunk of my power bill unless they went into standby mode but that's not desirable if your HA software has to be on 24/7 and how well that Software's code is optimized to not heavily tax the processor so it doesnt use more power.

let me put this in context. a small form factor pc like a SHUTTLE XPC has a power supply of 250 watts listed on their website, they don't list it as the maximum power comsuption.

an APPLE MAC MINI is listed to have a maximum power comsuption of 85 watts.

so if I want to spend the least amount of power a year running my HA I would get a Mac mini install bootcamp on it to basically convert it into a full windows box or run VMWare or Parallels and run windows in virtual mode knowing that the max amount of power at full capacity would be 85 watts.

yes the Mac mini is 600 bucks as opposed to a shuttle pc that could cost 200 less but if you factor in the power bill over time it looks like a viable option

that's why a lot people out there are using them in their cars because they can get a small power inverter an run a full capability computer without any hasstle as wells as people using them as home media server, or SAN's etc

Click to expand...

You are comparing apples to oranges . The shuttle xpc is not using 250 watts of power. If it is you have a problem. It is also not using 85 watts. You can also get low powered pc's for HA work. there are lots of references in the forum on low power PCs. The Macs mini is using the same intel processors as pcs, nothing special.