> Having one power supply per computer, besides the convenience of having it
> self contained, is the fact that the fan in a power supply is used not only
> to cool the supply itself, but to circulate air throughout the entire case.
> This is especially true for ATX spec cases and supplies, but is a general
> rule of thumb for all systems.
The main problem with running one supply/system is that I simply don't
have that many supplies. These are mostly old ALR computers (486/66's)
which I was able to save from the dumpster at the used computer store
that I work at. We took the standard AT power supplies out of them, and
sold them as used supplies. It certainly would not have been good for
my job if I had said "Hey can I have these twenty $10 items, I thought you
wouldn't mind." Images of the sarcastic comic book shop owner on the
Simpsons "Please take my money *I don't want it*."
Motherboard connectors are plentiful as people often bring in bad PS's,
and I have been cutting off the connectors as of late. Though of course
this involves bulk soldering :(, but that was the "fair amount of work" I
mentioned.
> You mention having central cooling for a cabinet, but I wonder if the added
> power that a central cooling unit (a 120V cabinet fan?) is offsetting any
> potential power savings by running less supplies total.
Same problem as above, but when you add up the cost (in watts) of 20-30
12V fans, the gains become a bit more apparent (though still possibly not
worth it).
> Even though most power supplies come in ratings of at least 220W or so, the
> average motherboard uses only a fraction. More power savings can be had by
> finding less watt hungry hard drives. Laptop drives are 2.5" and generally
> consume far less power than your average 3.5" drive. There are adapters
> aplenty from electronics shops that let you plug your 2.5" drive into a
> normal IDE cable. CD ROM drives and floppies are big power hogs too, but
> they're not on all the time anyway, so that's not a problem.
They will have only a floppy attached, which will run once (at boot up).
> As long as you have fun, why not? :-) Of course, then if you have one
> supply go out, you lose all your computers. But there's always a tradeoff
> between cost and reliability. The servers I work with (even the storage
> units) all have N+1 power supplies...but the cost! Whew!
This shouldn't actually be a problem as the computers will only be running
factoring assignments, and they should get these only a few at a time. The
assignment server will be running on a UPS, and will keep track of which
exponents are assigned.
-Lucas
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