On Mon, 2005-03-21 at 13:21 +1000, David Whyte wrote: > > Hrm... this > > might be my excuse to get a PVR x50 card (~20/mo savings, payback in > > 5-6 months... not too shabby). > > > > Doesn't that just mean the card will consume the power to do its > magic? So where you save on the CPU you lose on the tuner. > > Maybe...unless it takes less energy just to write the MPEG2! > For people that are really determined to save power, you might want to pick up a clamp on ammeter. They run about $30 or $40 at hardware stores. You will also need an extension cord you can separate and get one and only one of the power wires inside the clamp. (All the insulation should be left on the wires.) Power = i^2 * R so basically power utilization goes up as the square of the current. For the actual power usage multiply the amp reading by the RMS voltage.
I suspect thats about the only way to be sure if the PVR-250 will save you any power usage overall. Personally I rather doubt it will be that much. On another note. I have no earthly clue what the power factor is for computer power supplies, but one would think it would be possible to add the correctly sized AC capacitors and correct that if you were really concerned about it. Of course then you need to do all the math and make sure a nice case is found to keep the capacitor terminals away from anyones fingers. Actually I don't remember if conventional electric meters will read a larger value because of the tendency for the inductive loads to outnumber the capacitive ones or not. It might be something to check on one day. -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com
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