An Ultimate Windows Vista Problem

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Arrowcatcher

Computers now power hogs!

Two techie friends and I upgraded our XP computers to run Vista and
had been using beta and trial versions of Ultimate and Business
successfully. We installed temp HDs so our XP installs were
untouched.

However, our "Kill-a-Watt" electricity monitors show the upgraded
machines now draw 40% more ultility power. My P4 machine jumped from
a nominal 105 watts to 145 with its new Invidia FX5500 display
adapter, which I didn't otherwise need to edit AVI and MPEG2 videos.

If the box is used 200 hours a month, that's 2400 hours per year. The
40 watt power comsumption increase amounts to 96 kWh when annualized.

If 50 million people in the US and/or world do a similar upgrade with
roughly the same result, then the overall utility power consumption
increase is a whopping 4.8 billion kWh just so those computers can run
Vista.

Windows Vista may be a lot of things, but it's not ultimately "green".
 
thats nice stats! I'll keep that it mind..wow i didnt think vista would
impact my hydro bill hehe
 
If you're heavy into watching HD content on your PC, prepare yourself to
upgrade to a dual or quad core processor.

Vista's DRM for HD content scans all devices/connections/ content 30 times a
second for piracy/copying efforts, which will suck up enormous CPU cycles.

Essentially one of the cores will be devoted to DRM monitoring chores full
time.
 
Arrowcatcher said:
Computers now power hogs!

Two techie friends and I upgraded our XP computers to run Vista and
had been using beta and trial versions of Ultimate and Business
successfully. We installed temp HDs so our XP installs were
untouched.

However, our "Kill-a-Watt" electricity monitors show the upgraded
machines now draw 40% more ultility power. My P4 machine jumped from
a nominal 105 watts to 145 with its new Invidia FX5500 display
adapter, which I didn't otherwise need to edit AVI and MPEG2 videos.

If the box is used 200 hours a month, that's 2400 hours per year. The
40 watt power comsumption increase amounts to 96 kWh when annualized.

If 50 million people in the US and/or world do a similar upgrade with
roughly the same result, then the overall utility power consumption
increase is a whopping 4.8 billion kWh just so those computers can run
Vista.

Windows Vista may be a lot of things, but it's not ultimately "green".
Click to expand...

I suspect that you would have seen that power usage increase
due to the new video card under XP as well. Therefore, I
don't think you can blame vista for the increase in power
used. For what ever reason, it was your choice to install
the new card because you wanted the higher performance on
your system.

Nice stats, though. Every time we hang a new piece of
equipment on our systems it ups the amount of power used.
Gone are the days of 250 watt power supplies. Higher
performance devices just suck up more energy. It's kind of
like you walking one mile vs running one mile. You'll burn a
lot more calories running it than you will walking it.
 
I suspect that you would have seen that power usage increase
due to the new video card under XP as well.
Click to expand...

That's 100% true.
Therefore, I
don't think you can blame vista for the increase in power
used. For what ever reason, it was your choice to install
the new card because you wanted the higher performance on
your system.
Click to expand...

I only wanted the higher performance so I could run and check out
Vista. Otherwise I wouldn't have done this upgrade. I built the
machine in December 2003 and use it to edit AVI and MPEG2 videos. The
existing ATI 64 MB card worked just fine.

Now that I'm back to XP, the machine will continue to draw the
increased power unless I take out the nVidia card I just bought. The
fancy new card makes zero difference in the way I use the machine.
Nice stats, though. Every time we hang a new piece of
equipment on our systems it ups the amount of power used.
Gone are the days of 250 watt power supplies. Higher
performance devices just suck up more energy. It's kind of
like you walking one mile vs running one mile. You'll burn a
lot more calories running it than you will walking it.
Click to expand...

The large issue here is that a Microsoft OS is intended to be
ubiquitous. It is the vast recurrence of upgrades and installs
worldwide that push the resource consumption numbers to astronomical
levels. This is gradually becoming unacceptable.
 
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