| Joined: | Mon Apr 2nd, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
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Do you leave your MacPro computer on all the time?
Does Computer mean compute environment, e.g. computer(s), screens, routers, printers, etc.
I guess the MacPro uses a huge part and is less efficient than a MacMini. I tend to use my MacMini i7 server (2012) mostly.
Yes I only put it to sleep at night or if I go out shoppin etc. If I am away overnight I turn it off but usually leave the router on, unless I will be away for several days..
I have removed the UPS for now, trying to reduce complicating factors. Had a nasty moment with the UPS, I tried to install a meter before it and a meter after it. Idea being to subtract one from the other which would have told me the loss in the UPS but before I got that far the meter on the UPS output started to smoke... the screen went black and it got VERY hot. I quickly turned things off and removed the meter from the UPS output. I suspect the modified waveform didn't suit the circuitry in the meter. Perhaps along the lines that Geoff warned about with car battery inverters, after all the UPS uses an inverter with a modified sine wave, it's a 1500W APS unit from about 2009 or 10. You can get pure sine wave inverters but they are expensive I think
Yes, I have a dedicated 'clean' supply for the computer and all the ancillaries, that is what the graph is based on. I also have the router on the same circuit and that on most of the time unless I am away.
I have another meter which only records the MacPro itself. Still evaluating the detailed readings but it obviously is taking the lions share of the usage. I am going to try removing all the spinning drives for a while, see what difference that makes. There are 6 spinning drives and two SSD's
I have taken individual reading from my LED screen and the LCD screen, surprisingly there isn't enough difference to get excited about buying a second LED screen to save electric.
My i7 Mac mini died on me and my i5 is damaged, I damaged the logic board, I pulled the CD SATA socket off the motherboard. It may still work but I can't summon the enthusiasm to re-assemble it to find out. In fact I can't even remember why I was taking it to bits...
I am wondering about getting an Intel iMac just for internet use and turning the MacPro off except when I am processing images.
For now I am just evaluating my usage but the computer seems to be the villain. In very rough terms it's using about £200 worth of electric year, which seems a bit excessive. My house is fully fitted with LED room lamps and I cook and heat with gas, rarely have the TV on.
I have a G5 iMac but it's no good for the internet because it isn't HTML5 savvy I think. It's stuck in the pre intel era. Main advantage is it will run OS9 software via Rosetta. I have a couple of applications which I still use and work perfectly well on the G5. Slight issue with communicating with the other computer but screen shots work OK.
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Robert.