At work last month we had half of our servers go down because a power
strip which was supposed to have blown its breaks at 15 amps blew it at
half that. At home my computer room is already getting quite warm and it
is barely summer. The computer room has always been the hottest part of
the house yet I need it to be the most comfortable because that is where
I spend most of my time and need to be able to think. So this has me
thinking about a few things...
Can anyone recommend a simple device which can measure the amperage
used? Preferably without having to place it inline (I think some can
measure the EMF) but inline is doable if that is all there is.
Let's say a computer draws 1 amp. What is the rule on how much heat this
adds to a room? Any way to calculate how many degrees it might raise the
temperature of the room? I think we can assume that pretty much all of
that 2 amps turns into heat. I know power for electricity is voltage
times current so that would be 110 volts times 1 amp which is 110 watts.
A watt is 1 joule of energy per second. So at 110 watts I am dumping 110
joules of energy per second into the room. If I run the computer for an
hour I have added 396000 joules of energy to the room. If the room is
10x10x8 and we assume no outside circulation how fast will the room heat
up? The goal being to see if that it is reasonable that the computer is
making this room noticeably warmer (say, 5 degrees or more warmer) than
it would be without the computer.
Does anyone think it would accomplish much to somehow vent the hot air
coming out of my computer to the outdoors instead of into my room? It
just struck me that it must be more efficient to vent the hot air
outdoors and cool the ambient air than to try to cool the hot air from
the computer. I am surprised more datacenters are not trying to do this.
And if it does make sense to do this (I strongly suspect that it does)
has anyone seen kits or cases for this? I think I might go down to the
hardware store tomorrow and buy some of that flexible plastic dryer vent
hose to attach to the computer and then hang out the window. But how to
attach it to the back of the case? Hmm...just had an idea: I could get
one of those metal fittings that go on the inside of the wall that the
dryer hose attaches to, drill four holes in it, and put the bolts that
hold the fan in place through it and then through the case and the fan.
Yep, a run to the hardware store is definitely in order. I'll let you
know how it goes.
--
Tracy R Reed
http://ultraviolet.org
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
