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The Largest Single Electricity Drain In American Homes Is...

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disappoint said:
hahaha wasting real money (and energy) making fake money. I know you're kidding but I feel guilty now leaving the PS3 on once to run a 9 hour long B spec race in GT5 to farm money to unlock better cars. effin GHT5 and its effin grinding! When Forza 4 comes out I'm going to stick my GT5 disc in a freakin blender....ah shit more wasted power!

OK I'll run it over with a gas guzzling SUV instead.
Click to expand...

How am I kidding? I have traded bitcoins for real USD...it is no more real or fake than the USD, it is just FAR less stable.

I have made far more than the electricity I have used running the cards....
 
Just tested my cable box while off, it uses a wooping 0.09 amps. That's about 10 watts give or take at 120v. (not sure if the meter is true RMS or not)

Not much power. Any wall wart plugged in somewhere in the house will use about this much power, maybe a bit less.

And yeah, I should probably invest in a killawatt, but it's more fun this way. :awe:

lrg-1144-killawatt.JPG
 
Yeah I'd have to say that here in the south AC is the biggest usage. I run my AC at around 78f, and electric bills are literally twice as big in the summer as in the winter. We're talking $300-$400 instead of $100-$150. Identical use in all other areas (PCs, TV, etc).
 
Arkaign said:
Yeah I'd have to say that here in the south AC is the biggest usage. I run my AC at around 78f, and electric bills are literally twice as big in the summer as in the winter. We're talking $300-$400 instead of $100-$150. Identical use in all other areas (PCs, TV, etc).
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The South?
South of what?
South of France, Leon?
 
guyver01 said:
you're surprised?

they're on 24-7

even when you "power" them off, they're still on.

i don't even need to read the article to know this
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You're so full of it. There's a difference between knowing something and thinking something makes sense. I might say "by 2020, 35% of the population in the US will be of Latin descent." You might think "yeah there are a lot of immigrants coming here, especially from Mexico, so that makes sense." But to claim you knew that statistic, implicitly, would be a lie.

I don't believe you knew that cable boxes were the biggest drain. You know what else is on 24/7? What about your refrigerator or freezer? They are much larger appliances. What about television sets? They are never truly off either.
 
paperfist said:
Ever see the size of a cable box? They aren't exactly springing for the good hardware to put inside.

Gigabyte use to have a DRAM board on a card you could use as a harddrive, it was backed up by a AA battery if I recall.

Anyway nice to know cable companies bone us in more ways then one.
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So it's the cable companies that make the boxes?

hmmm, so do tell about this cable company called scientific america or motorola.
 
Ichinisan said:
Scientific Atlanta. :colbert:

I wonder if they're still in Atlanta after being acquired by Cisco...?
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That acquisition was to get Cisco's paws into the STB/Home arena, similar to Linksys.

Reference linksys to see how well that is turning out. Both will remain the bastard step children.
 
spidey07 said:
That acquisition was to get Cisco's paws into the STB/Home arena, similar to Linksys.

Reference linksys to see how well that is turning out. Both will remain the bastard step children.
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I've seen "Cisco" branded products with no Linksys name on the hardware. These were clearly based on a Linksys models, even having a Linksys MAC IDs.

In my line of work, I'm increasingly convinced more-and-more each day that Cisco purchased Linksys just to make sure the quality and reliability of "consumer-grade" network equipment would remain poor and not impact the sales of "professional-grade" gear costing hundreds or thousands of dollars. I believe Cisco got worried after seeing too many small businesses grabbing a cheap, reliable Linksys "Broadband Router." Now, nearly all home routers have wireless capability and need to be frequently rebooted for no good reason. I installed DD-WRT on my old WRT54G v4 and it has been ROCK SOLID. On top of that, it has dozens of useful features that the Linksys / Cisco firmware still doesn't offer.

...anyway, if you're implying that Linksys is a "bastard stepchild," I think you'd be incorrect. Linksys is still the dominant brand in home networking equipment. I don't know how they earned such loyalty, but the Best Buy sales person is almost always going to recommend Linksys whenever someone asks. Home wireless networking REALLY took-off after the acquisition (though not because of it). I'm sure Linksys has been hugely profitable for Cisco.
 
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Ichinisan said:
I've seen "Cisco" branded products with no Linksys name that were clearly based on a Linksys model, even having a Linksys MAC.

In my line of work, I'm increasingly convinced more-and-more each day that Cisco purchased Linksys just to make sure the quality and reliability of "consumer-grade" network equipment would remain poor and not impact the sales of "professional-grade" gear costing hundreds or thousands of dollars. I believe Cisco got worried after seeing too many small businesses grabbing a cheap, reliable Linksys "Broadband Router." Now, nearly all home routers have wireless capability and need to be frequently rebooted for no good reason. I installed DD-WRT on my old WRT54G v4 and it has been ROCK SOLID. On top of that, it has dozens of useful features that the Linksys / Cisco firmware still doesn't offer.
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And now you have it all figured out. It's just business.
 
Darn you, how did you know I'd mouse over the topic? Just for putting that filler, I decided just to post this and not read the post. Yeesh!
 
Perknose said:
Something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something -- You'll have to open the thread to find out -- something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26cable.html?_r=1&hp

Cable boxes! D: 😱
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Good job, you actually made me open the thread. Haha

I don't have cable though. I think my AC is the biggest power draw 😛
 
i call those 'computers'
anything with a computer is a computer, even a 'cable box'
computers often need to stay on to do stuff, like get updates and do stuff with the mother ship
that is how it works
 
I just looked at the graphic:
26CABLE-graphic-popup-v2.jpg

“A new study has found that some home entertainment systems eat more energy than refrigerators or central air-conditioning systems.”

It's misleading!

“Typical HD television set-top box configuration” is a converter box AND a television. Running “24 hours” each day is not a typical usage scenario!
 
Ichinisan said:
I just looked at the graphic:
26CABLE-graphic-popup-v2.jpg

“A new study has found that some home entertainment systems eat more energy than refrigerators or central air-conditioning systems.”

It's misleading!

“Typical HD television set-top box configuration” is a converter box AND a television. Running “24 hours” each day is not a typical usage scenario!
Click to expand...

Misleading is right! Where the hell is the air conditioner on this scale?

Huge contradiction with this : http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html

I think this 'study' is just trying to get attention / page hits by being deliberately rigged.
 
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